


Death Loses in a Beauty Contest

by plasterbrain



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Does trying to cut her hands off count as knifeplay, Drama & Romance, Erotophonophilia, F/M, Gun Violence, Mental Illness, Murder, Tying someone to a bed post because you can't figure out how to kill them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-02-05 22:51:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12804102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plasterbrain/pseuds/plasterbrain
Summary: Granted a second chance at life, a former Demacian spy tries courting an Ionian serial killer who's convinced she's immortal.





	1. Ionian Lullaby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last edited 4/9/18

Kindred had been busy. It was hard to say when, but some time following the Noxian invasion, the once isolationist Ionia had finally, and irrevocably, broken. Beneath its veneer of pacifism showed the unwelcome face of warring factions, secret cabals, and political turmoil. In a place that boasted the greatest level of spiritual enlightenment in the world, asassinations were now fashionable. Such was the power the Noxian war machine, whose efforts required Lamb to keep the knowledge of countless half lives. Now more than ever, their fleeting names and faces could share only a moment of her consciousness before falling back into the obscure reaches of memory, and then nothingness. Only an unusual few managed to, through certain peculariaties, persist.

Killers came and went, and died, but Lamb would be lying to say that Khada Jhin, among them, was not remarkable.

The Virtuoso had long stood at the edge of Kindred's awareness. They both were able to admire his work, which was practiced and violent at once, sometimes at intervals. Most of those he killed met their ends between Wolf's waiting teeth, but in those rare cases when Jhin's victims preferred the arrow, when they were collected about themselves and able to say "this is you, killing me," she remembered why it was the man was so despised. The work was not merely carnage; the work was stolen lives, taking everything someone ever was and could ever hope to be and turning it into an almost.

Tonight seemed to be one of those occasions. Wolf was growling low in his throat, not eager like he usually was catching the scent of fear. The victim in question, a human girl, met his gaze slowly, her wide, hopeless eyes wet at the lashes. His quarry would often cry at the end of the hunt, yes, that was good, but the rhythm of her heart, which Lamb and Wolf both heard very clearly, was only slightly nervous, a mild fluttering; it did not suggest someone who was tired and bleeding out on an empty stage.

The human closed its eyes before them slowly. If it had been scared it might've flinched or kept them open. It was _supposed_ to be scared! Instead it wore the faintest of smiles. A knowing look that asked them, "Well? What will you do?"

No, it wasn't a girl, Lamb supposed. The curve of her back as she sat perched on the piano bench, fingers sliding off the keys and legs pressed together with one foot numbly on the sustain, suggested a woman. A few notes still lingered in the air, their sound fading and blurring as though through the depths of dark water. She had been singing and was now finished. It was a sad song. Lamb understood the words but not the feeling behind them. Wolf didn't know the words but was profoundly unhappy for reasons he could not explain.

Jhin was somewhere in the middle.

About an hour ago he had expected this to be easy. This was a sort of performance-between-performances, nothing special about it, just the usual routine: fire the first three bullets and let them bleed beautifully, watch as his work tried to escape, make his grand re-entrance, relishing the moment despair claimed their features, and establish the finale.

But this one hadn't struggled, nor had she looked for an exit. She seemed to be going wildly off the script. The woman had the sort of figure that'd look nice dead and draped over a piano, so he'd shot her in the shoulder, calf, and upper thigh and hoped she had enough instinct — admittedly he might have been expecting a little much here as most people are idiots — to lean against the one behind her on stage.

By the time he came back for her final scene she was instead poking at the keys carefully.

"How quaint," he had thought, humming softly to himself, "a little music for the show." Amateurs often improvised on his stage, which was a nuisance, though not something he couldn't handle. But it had been no use; her song was in triple meter (terrible, terrible) and no matter how hard he tapped or hummed he had not been able to reset the music in his head which had been startled into silence.

So instead he'd listened, walking quietly towards that stage, without even raising his weapon, and he'd sat in the front row, and he'd heard her strange words, and that's when he'd realized she was singing a love song to her killer.

In the silence that followed the final measure, Jhin noted with some interest the sound of his heart hammering in his chest. He longed to sit there and let the feeling wash over him — in the cold glow of the stage, a woman bleeding there, dying, loving him, a woman he could kill at his leisure, whose heart he would make literally and figuratively burst, the inevitable fourth act hanging over their heads like a heavy blade. He could make love to that picture.

But the Virtuoso would not miss his cue.

He gave her polite applause, the sharp sound of his hands coming together punctuating the musty silence. "Such a lovely performance," he said, rising from his seat, but quickly amended: "Though it _was_ hindered by the clumsy use of 6/8 time."

The woman hardly stirred, though a smile pulled at her features. "The two of us have not been entirely honest with each other," she said, unable to divert her gaze from the pictures she saw on the piano keys. "Do you plan to kill me?" It was a stupid question to ask. Meeting the gaze of his unseen guests was like staring into an endless winter sky.

"My plans have not changed, my dear." Jhin approached the small set of stairs leading up to the apron, running his hand along Whisper's loaded barrel. He gracefully mounted the steps, pausing on each one for dramatic effect.

Wolf snorted and bared his large teeth. "The girl thing is playing a boring game. I want a chase!"

"She is sad, dear wolf," Lamb observed. "She is in love, but this love is not returned." It was an unusual case to be sure, but Lamb recognized the gentle reverence in her gaze as Khada Jhin tilted the woman's face towards his own, wiping a tear with his thumb, as some kind of love. He pointed the gun at her chest as though it were a delicate offering.

Lamb wondered about this man, and what he did in his spare time. Slept, traveled. Convserations, none. Relationships, purely transactional. He too would know the loneliness of death in a place that feared it. Yes, that was the word. His compulsions had forced him to be lonely.

The woman laughed. "Meeting you is so much worse than I'd imagined," she said with fresh tears. "It was so much nicer to think you would care nothing for me than to die knowing it." Jhin was looming over her.

"But I do care for you," he said. "I had thought this would be an ordinary performance but you — your feelings — have inspired me." His fingers moved up her face. "Your unrequited love will be spelled out in blood." She closed her eyes. _Unrequited_ was as much a threat to her as anything else.

How strange this woman was to love such a person, to have placed herself so obviously in harm's way for reasons beyond Lamb's cold, logical approach. Compelling, in its way. Whatever she was feeling had caused Wolf, ordinarily thrilled by the thought of imminent bloodshed, to become sullen and impatient. These were two of the unusual few in the same room.

"No, I suppose not unrequited," Jhin conceded quietly. "In a way, I do love you. Your potential has seduced me, my little pet. And now, together we will perform a masterpiece."

"A magnum opus," the woman said dryly.

"Perhaps even that."

Lamb, who was perched atop the piano, felt the delicate curve of her wooden bow. She met the woman's eyes and wondered if she might be a little spontaneous today. She said, "Beautiful one, this man intends to kill you, just as he has killed countless others. Your own death is at hand. Still you would forgive him?" The woman who sat on the piano bench behind that gun gave an incline of the head, exhaling so softly only the dust in the room was disturbed by it.

"It is stupid," said Wolf.

Lamb glared at him. "Hush." Then, returning: "He has heard your cries and yet rejects you. It is likely he does not understand your feelings and they will not be returned, not as you would like them to be. Still you would pursue him?"

Jhin saw the woman nodding. Desperate little pet, he thought, or perhaps she understood, after all, her purpose in the grand scheme of things, in his work. Such was unlikely — very few truly knew the depths and nature of his genius — but let her think what she likes. It was better this way. Some worrying part of him was relieved to see her at ease.

With the thought of her gentle smile to console him, Jhin let go of her face and pulled the trigger. He tried to imagine what the bullet looked like as it tore through her heart, rearranging the pieces, layer after layer after layer. Normally evidence of a kill on his costume was an annoyance, but at that moment he regretted not getting blood on her hands, her actual hands, so he might keep the two red stains of her desperately reaching out and clinging to him.

"He shot her, Lamb! Strike now!" cried Wolf, circling the scene, the sight of fresh blood reminding him of what he was. But Lamb made no move for her weapon. Instead, with a movement of her fist, the stage flooded with life.

"Not here," said Lamb. "Not yet."


	2. About That Mask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last edited 10/6/18

Dya might have once called herself Demacian. At the moment, however, with a serial killer she intended to seduce sitting two barstools away from her, she was unsure.

She was not supposed to seduce him. When Jarvan III had sent her, he had only wanted the rumors substantiated that Ionia's infamous Golden Demon had indeed been sequestered from his comfortable spot in prison. It was easy enough to verify these claims with a visit to the Tuulan monks who were supposed to have custody of the "demon," (in reality, a mortal man named Khada Jhin) but then she had decided to investigate further, which had been a mistake — because incidental to her now _extensive_ knowledge of how the man found, attracted, and murdered his victims, she had also discovered the fact she wanted to fuck him and that she was a horrible person.

Dya knew the word for this: "hybristophile," a person attracted to criminals, and a synonym for "idiot." She had not known herself to be a hybristophile, because criminals were everywhere, she always dealt with them, and none of her past partners had been anything like this person, this Khada Jhin. They were Demacian. They were _nice_.

But she must have been one. There was no other explanation for it. Maybe she had always harbored a secret attraction for the absolute worst of criminals, because this obsession, which was neither a mere schoolgirl crush as she had intially hoped nor a passing whim, established its presence at least a couple times a day and every hour of the night, the ghost of his figure appearing beside her at even the slightest notion of intimacy.

She saw Khada Jhin and for the first time she understood poetry.

Sitting at the bar and staring into the glass of gin (a purposeful choice) she had ordered but not yet touched, Dya retraced her steps and tried to piece together when, exactly, she had first become a hybristophile instead of a Demacian, and whether her values had been somehow spoiled by all the cruelty she had witnessed in her life or whether she had perhaps always been this awful without realizing it.

First there was the photograph, taken during his time in Tuula. Khada Jhin was not handsome to an eye which was not oriented towards him, but this was a man who had killed countless people, had been apprehended and imprisoned, and rather than respond with shame or derision, or false platitudes to placate his captors, had chosen to stare into the camera with a look of existential horror. Something that was not in the room had made him deathly afraid, and because this had caused her to look upon Khada Jhin with pity, perhaps she had loved him even then.

They had let her keep the photograph, but they had not been able to tell her anything about his disappearance. He was simply there one day and the next he was gone, and now they, too, were frightened.

The Noxian invasion had fractured Ionia like a gem. The Violet Raven, Xan Irelia, the Order of Shadows — every famous name to come out of the place belonged to a person or faction waging a personal war. If Khada Jhin had been secretly released, it was almost certainly part of someone's deadly agenda. She could not go back without finding out what it was, and what was going to happen.

Using word of his recent killings as her compass, she found herself in Navori. That the Festival of Fire was soon going to take place there could not have been coincidence. In two weeks, under the Blood Moon, there would be another murder. In the meantime, Dya could only keep her eyes and ears open until she saw the man in the photograph.

She was surprised by how unnoticable he was in everyday life. He rarely spoke or met anyone's eyes, and made a habit of clearing his throat when he was nervous. The monks at Tuula had described him as "polite and shy," almost too accurately. She had tried to make conversation with him once, in a pottery shop, though his responses were closed off and trite, as though, even a head taller than most crowds, he was used to being unnoticed.

What was his power? What was it about his killings that made someone want to use him, specifically, as a weapon?

After following him for days and finding none of his activities of any interest, she began to lose hope of ever witnessing the transformation. Perhaps he left traps, poisons or spells that killed long after their owner had moved somewhere else. Perhaps she wouldn't get to see anything.

She was wrong.

Gods, where does one even start? The flamboyant, mocking persona? The mask? The — whatever that was he wore on his shoulder? The gun might be the best place. Its name was Whisper. He gave it a name, and he introduced it, and then he said it was ironic. She wanted to laugh until he started shooting. If Khada Jhin thought nothing of his victims, the gun had even less respect. She had never seen the human figure so badly and deliberately disfigured. By the time she was no longer petrified, a man was already dead and she had done nothing about it, preoccupied as she was with dislodging the sight of his corpse from her memory.

Yet lying awake at night, thoughts of his victim's cries and anguish gave way to more troubling obsessions: the way the Virtuoso moved as he shot them. His voice, his eyes. She struggled to find a name for the feeling that lingered in her chest, mixed sensations of warm comfort and cool pinpricks. "Admiration" seemed wrong for it.

(Adoration and lust. The faintest echoes, pay them no mind.)

The second time she watched him kill something was definitely wrong. Jhin — no, Khada Jhin; he must be referred to formally, by his clinical nomenclature — couln't have known she was there and yet graced the scene of the crime always as though playing for an invisible audience. He coached his victims through the movements between life and death, praising them, scolding them, using words like "precious." "Lovely" was her favorite.

She shouldn't have had a favorite, but that one was. That one did things to her.

But these were probably things he said to countless girls as they lay dying, she told herself. Then she was jealous, and that was worse.

(The urge to protect and to covet. Now it was becoming a list of things.)

The image of the man with the mask, and without it, hung between her ears like a humming sound, a lingering question added to every statement and aspect of life: "but what about him?" His shape was stuck in her head, with words and music of a song she had never sung out loud before, but wanted to sing to him badly. The sound of a face.

The best thing to do would be to return to Demacia City, tell her superiors that someone, or a group of people, had released this _force of nature_ who blended in with daytime crowds while somehow hiding a scorpion's tail, and warn them of the gun he called Whisper, a Hextech weapon infused with profound wild magic which was unlike anything she had ever seen.

But what then? What would be the purpose of this information? To form a preemptive line of defense should he be sent after Demacians? To stem the flow of violence from what was once such an obedient nation, to _kill_ him? The thought that she might do something to kill him paralyzed her.

Any minute now, as soon as the appetite struck her, she would drink and drink from the cup on the bar counter until she was too drunk to think about all this, and then she would pass out.

Or, if she dared, she wouldn't, because she wanted to be fully lucid for every second of him killing her.

If only it was as simple as seducing a man! Jhin was already taken by an idea, an image of himself, and there was something wrong with him. In a way, dying would almost be better, because then she wouldn't have to live with being awful anymore, and there was a chance he would call the remains of her "lovely."

The bartender cleared his throat.

"The way you're staring at that glass you'd think it'd done something to you," he said with a worried laugh.

Dya snapped out of her thoughts. "Oh. Oh, fuck."

He was drying a glass in his hands, unable to hide a look of deep concern. "Will you be... taking a room, Miss? I don't suppose you'll want to be out this late, not with all that's been happening lately."

"I have— I'm staying somewhere else. It's just that I'd heard a lot about this place and haven't had the time until now..."

"Uh... huh," he said with an unsubtle glance at her unfinished drink.

Why was the air here so suffocating?

"Perhaps I could walk you to wherever that is your staying? Miss?"

"No, no no!" Dya shook her head in a panic as the words tumbled out of her mouth before she could catch them. "Don't worry about me. I... fight better when I'm slightly intoxicated." She tried a laugh and the unnatural smile of a woman with her head on a guillotine. Her nerves were singed by gentle flames as she overpaid and her disobedient feet took her out the door.

Then she waited, in front of that tavern, with her hands in her pockets and her breath disappearing in puffs of smoke.

Acting dumb and helpless was not a tool in her skillset Dya had expected to use when she first took on the assignment. Nonetheless she waited as the minutes of her life came to a close and her window for escape closed, until she heard that familiar voice, her favorite voice, offer to walk her home, learn she was a foreigner and suggest a shortcut in the wrong direction. Marks always did.

✤✤✤✤

How could he have been so stupid? Looking back on the events of the evening, it was obvious she had manipulated him, intended her own capture. A woman like that trusting a man like him alone at night would be a laughably obvious trap anywhere but Ionia. No, even here it had been obvious. She had said she was inebriated, but he knew she had not touched a single drop, he _knew_ that and yet he chose to ignore it because he needed this third piece of of his tetraptych by tomorrow and she would have been so beautiful for it, so, so beautiful.

He had been watching her out of the corner of his eye all night, watching as the stars aligned and wearing a practiced face over his uncontrollable glee as this woman made herself so blindly available.

And what about the performance itself? She had been helpless. She had not raised a hand to defend herself and yet here she was, unaffected by a bullet shot point-blank which was supposed to arrange her vital organs into a garden for his enjoyment. But not until the end did she ever act surprised, he realized. He was an idiot.

Khada Jhin did not make the mistake of luring immortals into his realm, not ever. It was a waste of his time and a tremendous risk, and it would not happen again.

The wounds he had so lovingly planned began to patch themselves together by some hidden magic. Undoubtedly she would soon turn to him, with sudden strength and moral clarity carefully hitherto concealed, proclaim she was an instrument of parable and extract from him whatever it was the tedious immortal desired: justice, sexual gratification, perhaps just to see the look on his face. Oh, he hoped it wasn't a spirit of vengeance — the dullest of occupational hazards.

But a vengeance spirit would not have known how to seduce him through his own craft or make him ache. Almost certainly this a demon of lust with unusual tastes. Or a goddess.

Now there was something he wouldn't dare think about.

Let her bide her time for nothing, then. He would hide, at least until his arousal subsided, so this undying and selfish woman would not have the satisfaction. Up until that point everything had been so wonderful. Had things gone to plan, he would have stayed there all night, touching himself, remembering her desperation and love and his unwavering, exquisite violence. She had taken that from him.

Jhin retreated into darkness. By the time her senses returned to her he was gone.

Dya looked up from her stupor, hoping to find him amongst the empty seats, but there was only the sea of dust floating against blinding white. The ringing in her ears subsided, and a hush fell over the place, bringing with it the warm and earthen comfort of the grave. She brushed her fingers tentatively over the spot on her chest that should have been torn open, and to her shoulder which had stinged so terribly she had been afraid to even look at it. She touched her face, which was wet. Had she been crying? Dya didn't remember crying.

She allowed herself a sad smile. He had said her song was lovely. How her heart had soared at that. If she hadn't been so weak and lightheaded and afraid she might have tried to hug him instead of staring at the piano numbly.

What did such a gift mean? What was she supposed to do with it? Alive. The word echoed in her thoughts like it was a part of her brain. She was alive, and the Blood Moon was still rising.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if Dya's actually a Demacian-sounding name; it's just an acronym for Delete Your Account.


	3. Night Opera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last updated 4/9/18

The Festival of Fire seemed to draw in more visitors from out of the country with each passing year. The once quintessentially Ionian tradition was becoming something of a tourist attraction; foreigners bought painted weapons from the artists' stands to hang up on their mantlepieces, thinking themselves worldly and cultured without the slightest knowledge about the damn things. He might have felt something besides amused if Ionian culture was worth feeling anything else about.

This was just the inevitable watering down of a creatively and politically naive society. These crowds, dressed in all colors of the world, were the surging tides of the times. The world was going to war.

Jhin watched a Piltover man inspect a sword in his hands like a strange loaf of bread. How lacking ordinary people were in any emotional depth or artistry! And there were so many children, scrambling around like insects. He passed a row of booths selling food and trinkets to lines of people, regarding a young boy and girl who crossed in front of him in some sort of chasing game with mild disgust.

He adjusted the pearl white, horned mask over his face and focused on the smell of fresh dumplings and sweets in the air. Craftsmen and chefs had traveled to the Serene Gardens in Navori from all over the country to sell their wares, and he had vague memories from his boyhood of the food here being some of the best he had ever tasted. But the Virtuoso was not here to partake. He was here to perform.

The job was simple enough: take out the festival's guest of honor from Shon-Xan, a famous dancer who would be taking the stage tonight before the lighting of scrolls on the Great Tree. She was a well-known advocate for granting amnesty to Noxian prisoners and returning to political neutrality, evidently two stances his clients were not wild about. Allegedly the Duchess Karma would be in attendance. The thought of orchestrating death in front of a live audience, and that woman especially, made him tingle.

The safest way to substitute her performance with his own was from a sniping nest he had already established early that morning amongst the tall trees surrounding the place. An uninspired approach to be sure, but Ionia's architecture and topography was practically designed for it, something Jhin had come to appreciate since he had started doing work on a contractual basis, along with the concept of fireworks. Fireworks were absolutely _divine._ Kind of a shock long-range firearms weren't more common really, but that was just one of the many examples of the tremendous stupidity of his fellow countrymen. Perhaps in the resulting chaos he might add a few more actors, some minor roles, to the night's opera before making an exit. Who knows? Performances like this were so easy the Virtuoso could afford a little spontaneity.

Now he was walking around the place, mapping it out, and making note of any potential hiding spots and escape routes on the very, very slim chance something didn't go to plan. A director can't really block a scene without knowing the stage, in any case.

The vendor stalls reached an end as he came upon the Great Tree, where groups of people sat enjoying the shade or affixing scrolls to its tremendous branches. Jhin noted the long table where brushes, inkstones, and parchment were being distributed by two festival attendants. Why not? The Virtuoso had worries as much as anyone else. He casually approached and took a paper from the large stack and laid it out on the table. He stroked a brush against the black stone, and stared down at the blank parchment in thought.

One hand steadying the paper, he began to curl and sweep the brush in elegant lines, lifting and starting again in a steady rhythm until he was finished. Jhin studied the finished product, a collection of black shapes arranged into his fears. He admired his own handwriting, which was long and like the leaves of a weeping willow.

"This used to be so easy," someone muttered behind him.

For Khada Jhin, a familiar voice was always a bad thing. The identity of the speaker was just slightly out of memory's reach, which was even worse, but he couldn't afford to turn suddenly and betray his concern.

From his position, Jhin could make out in his periphery a woman's forearms taking up the space beside him. She pushed back the large red angel sleeves that fell to her wrists and began to write. Jhin tried to back away slowly to get a better view of her. Long, dark brown hair pulled back and tied twice with red ribbon.

"You'd just write something about how you wanted to improve yourself, or something that had happened in the past," she continued to some unseen companion. "I've never been so worried about the present... or the future."

A man appeared in a mask beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. "We are living in a time of turbulence," he said in an even voice that made Jhin's blood run cold. "It may take years to return the balance to Ionia, but with enough patience order will be restored."

Shen. The man whose father had sent him to prison, who would recognize Jhin's voice and hate him for his work. Which must have meant the girl in the red robes was the one from the Kinkou Order, the Fist of Shadow. Her actual name escaped him.

"Did you hear? They said the Blood Moon Cult's on the rise again," she was saying.

"There is no such thing."

"Seven people died. Ionia's been on edge lately. Dark magic—"

"The explanation is often much simpler," Shen said. Not wanting to hear what he had in mind, Jhin turned quietly and left the grove, struggling to keep a relaxed, even pace and not break out into a run.

That man left his parchment on the table, Shen noticed. Was he an outsider, perhaps, who didn't know the custom? Impossible. There were countless hanging papers on display before them, and the man had been wearing a horned Ionian demon mask much like his own: a finely crafted mask, expensive, not the kind being sold to tourists. He had been in a hurry for some reason, almost as though he were disturbed by what he had written and didn't want to be seen with it. Shen studied the abandoned parchment again.

"I may have cheated death," it said.

Shen looked behind him for the man who had just departed, but Jhin had already disappeared into the crowd.

✤✤✤✤

That behavior was just weird and paranoid enough to belong to a criminal. Lucky break the Kinkou Order showed up wearing the same costumes the newspapers pictured them in every year. Dya had been splitting her attention between three potential candidates, but watching this one make a break for it when anyone else might have calmly put their scroll on the tree more or less confirmed his identity.

The scope of his clients' generosity had first become apparent that morning when the Golden Bird tavern owner claimed dumbly to have never seen a man like the one she was describing, one of the perhaps three-at-most patrons of his inn for the past several weeks. Khada Jhin was no longer a random criminal; he could cover his escape trail with money. Fortunately years in this line of work had refined Dya's educated guesses into an artform. He might have relocated since their last encounter, but a couple of hunches could take her right back to him.

Most likely, he was after a target of national significance, and at this time of year in Navori the Festival of Fire was the most probable venue. Knowing that a handful of powerful shadow warriors were after him, Jhin would use the festivities as an excuse to wear a mask, and not his trademark mask, either, which was both unnatural-looking and easy to recognize by his most recent botched target. He was likely paranoid of being detected by her if he assumed she was in town for this festival.

Any meetings he had would be transactional or clandestine, an information exchange. Jhin did not have friendly conversations with people, especially not in a crowd of strangers.

There was a good chance he would wear something fitting his typical aesthetic: purple, white, red, gold, asymmetrical, pointlessly fancy. And unlike many of the festival patrons in disguise, his mask would never be removed. He acquired a theatrical mindset any time he was behind a mask, and chances were he would vastly overestimate his ability to conceal his usual Jhin-isms, which was why she felt fairly certain the first swaggering figure a head above the crowd in a red and white robe she saw was her man.

Dya briefly wondered whether she was overdoing it, but getting a second chance at life had filled her with a determination to track him down at any cost. Dya popped a candied almond in her mouth before looking again through the binoculars. After a moment of careful scanning around the tree area she picked him out again, headed beyond the venue area in a somewhat panicked stride towards a hill which would provide a less crowded viewpoint of the festivities — and where he would be alone.

She stood and returned the binoculars to her bag, making sure not to lose sight of him. Dya pounded a fist on her chest. "Stop it," she said, annoyed that her heartrate had picked up.

Dya gathered her things and, taking a deep breath through her nostrils, set off to meet him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jhin's color story doesn't mention Kennen, who, as a lightning-powered furball, has doubtless has been deemed TOO SILLY for the Serious Lore(TM). I have chosen to abide by their decision to exlclude him, so you can just assume during this moment he's off doing something dumb and not serious like eating candy.


	4. It's So Wonderful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last updated 4/28/18

Jhin was sitting against the base of a small tree. If he wanted to, he could coax it to grow into unusual shapes of his own design, to reach up like the last grasp of desperate hands or become like sharp pillars on which to impale a corpse. He had done both before.

He watched as the clouds towards the horizon became ever redder as the sun sank low behind them. The first festival he had been able to attend since his childhood was on an evening so cloudy the Blood Moon would be impossible to see, but this mattered little; his performance began at sunset and would end shortly after.

He thought he was alone until a voice sounded behind him.

"You are a hard man to catch," it said, jolting him out of his thoughts. Its owner stepped out in front of him, oblivious to the glare concealed by his mask. "But I'd be bad at my job if I couldn't do it."

The demon. The spirit. The devil. The woman. Didn't matter. He kept very still despite the sudden feelings — was this anger? fear? anxiety? — that flooded through him. How had she found him so fast, and in disguise, and after he had paid the innkeeper to say nothing? She was like a dog chasing after his scent. Jhin wouldn't be able to run without raising suspicion, and Whisper was packed neatly in its case at the sniper nest about a half mile away. He was cornered.

The artist met her eyes. The Thing didn't seem especially threatening this time either, more like... soft. No. That was how she had fooled him last time. He would not fall for that doe-eyed expression again.

Jhin cleared his throat. "My hour of reckoning, is it?" he swallowed. "I suppose you've come to collect your... _winnings_ from our last encounter, so to speak. Just make it quick."

"I wasn't aware I'd won a prize," she said, taking this as an invitation to kneel in the grass beside him. "I actually just wanted to give you something." She pulled a round bamboo container from her bag and opened it. Inside were two large steamed dumplings that smelled of pork. Jhin looked at them and tried to feign disinterest.

"I... what?"

"They're pork buns," she said stupidly.

"Yes, but why?"

"I... thought you'd be hungry?" she answered like it was obvious. That hadn't been the aim of his question, though. He wondered why she wanted to feed him. Perhaps they were poisoned. "Please take one or I'll eat both and regret it later."

"I'm not indulging you. _You_ denied me a masterpiece."

"I thought you said you loved me," she said.

"I loved you as an idea. I don't even know your name. As a person you are nothing."

She offered him a pork bun with both hands. "Eat." He snorted with annoyance and looked away. Realizing she wasn't giving up any time soon, he took the dumpling from her so she would at least stop staring.

The woman picked up the remaining bun and bit into it without much thought, her attention returning to the festival splayed before them. "Oh wow, wait. Oh wow." She looked at the bun. "This is really good. Excellent choice by me."

After taking a moment to make sure no one was around them, Jhin pushed up his mask just enough to expose his mouth. He took a small bite and chewed thoughtfully. "I suppose you're not entirely useless," he said.

"... well, actually not a choice, since I've kind of been trying everything," she was rambling. "I think I just really love Ionian food. Do you eat this kind of stuff every day?" Her eyes lit up. "I have so much to ask you!"

So she wasn't here to torture him, but... to interrogate him? Oh. Oh no no no no. Not one of those spirits, the lonely, whimsical ones that do as they please with humans and hang around where they're not wanted forever. He'd never be rid of her.

"You want to... ask me questions," he repeated in an even tone. "About my work, I assume."

"Well, no. Well yes, but no not primarily. Primarily I just want to spend... time with you. That sounds weird, doesn't it. Okay. Yeah. I... To be honest, I never really thought I'd get this far."

He was close enough to reach out and touch.

"I don't think we've properly met," she said, extending her hand. "I'm Dya. Last night you killed me." She seemed relieved to have found a line of conversation to settle on.

"And yet you've returned," he said bitterly. "Unfortunate. A beautiful piece of work completely destroyed." He took another bite of the dumpling, making it clear he had no intentions of returning a handshake. She withered a little.

"You probably know why."

"Why you refused to die and have now come back to haunt me?" he asked. "No idea. My best guess is that it's cosmic irony. Some god is laughing at my expense, I'm sure. A god upset that gods have gone out of fashion, and that my work has taken the spotlight."

She gave him a patient smile. "Well, if you're not going to shoot me or get out of here I think I will ask a few questions."

"You get four," he said sharply.

Dya hesitated. That was about four more than she was expecting to have. How would she spend them? The one she most wanted to ask was lodged in her throat and at first only came out as a little squeak. "Ok. First: Did you mean it when you said my song was... lovely?" she managed.

"Did you mean it when you sang the words?" he said.

"Of course!" she cried in a voice much louder than she'd intended. She took a moment to regain her composure. "Of course."

"Interesting."

"That's not an answer."

"I did mean it, and I also meant it when I said the use of triple meter was in poor taste," he shrugged, "but on a whole the composition was not... terrible." Such a curt summary belied his true feelings on the matter, but he refused to tell her anything of substance. He would reveal nothing if he could help it, partly out of petty stubbornness and a little bit from fear. Knowing what he did now, Jhin wished he truly was as dispassionate as his words suggested, and cursed his past self for having been so accommodating.

Dya sat up a little straighter with a sudden swell of confidence. "So you get it was about you, right?"

"Yes. Two more."

"W-Wait, that was a follow-up question, that doesn't count!"

"Two more."

She sighed. It wasn't worth pushing. "Alright. Have you, um... Have you ever had feelings for someone — living person I mean?"

Jhin folded his arms and leaned back against the tree, regarding her with wary annoyance. "Let me ask you something. What is it you hope to get out of this? I guarantee you are wasting your time, and mine."

She snorted. "With all due respect, neither of us have anything better to be doing."

"That depends on how you define better."

"Assuming that's a no," she began, steeling herself. "Would you be willing to try?"

"Try what?"

She tugged at her ponytail in mild distress. "Liking someone. A relationship. I guess."

A lust demon, he was absolutely certain. And how insidious she was! To go after such a difficult target, the thing must have known exactly what it was doing; she had found a man who was feared and despised by many, a man she _assumed_ was hardened by this and thus behind it all must have some vulnerable center he kept carefully sequestered. He would try to kill her, but she would survive, follow him to the ends of the earth and gnaw at his willpower until at last he blossomed for her sweet release. Only by appearing so helpless herself could she ever make him lower his own defenses, believing himself in the position of power, and no doubt this apparent bashfulness was a facade for a monster and a sadist. Imagining the dark desires for hurt behind those probing eyes invited the gentle hands of arousal to briefly cross over him.

Just what would she do when he refused to yield — when at last realized there was no vulnerable center to be found?

Jhin chuckled. "Oh, Dya. Dya, Dya, Dya, my darling," he said, trying her name. It sounded like "dying." He ran his fingers along her cheek. "How do I say this... It simply wouldn't work. The actress cannot be in love with the artist. That would direct attention and criticism to the form itself."

"Oh, but Jhin, she so very much is." Dya leaned into his hand, a beautiful act.

"Meta-narratives are cheap and overused, my dear. Find someone else I can put onstage."

"No," she said. "There is no one else."

"Perhaps you imagined you might serve as my muse."

She smiled ruefully.

"Perhaps you thought you might _change_ me. Tch. It's cute but... uninspired." He pulled away. "Many have tried and failed. I cannot rid myself of my compulsions."

"I don't hope to change anything," she said, looking down. "I only wish to be so loved that I could inspire a moment's hesitation in a man known to lack mercy."

Jhin scoffed. "I give meaning to people's lives. I make sure they are remembered. Only a fool would call that a lack of mercy."

She said nothing, looking down at the grass.

"I... hesitated," he confessed. "If that's the right word. I'll admit your performance caught me by surprise."

"I guess that's all I can ask for." Finished with the dumpling, Dya rose to her feet slowly and took a few steps away to look out over the festival. She turned to glance over her shoulder. "Are you going to leave if I look away?" Either it's supposed to be a nervous tick, tugging on her hair like that — Jhin thought to himself — or she thinks it's cute. It isn't.

"You already asked me four questions," he responded. But he made no attempts to leave.

She laughed like a stupid, tinkling bell, her very presence, alive and unharmed, a mockery of his art and an embodiment of his failure. Dya risked turning her back to him again.

Jhin studied her, an attractive woman by ordinary standards, one who would certainly have no problems with her usual quarry: men and women harried by war, starved for intimacy. He did not count himself among them. For the artist's eye, however, her looks offered nothing. The only thing that saved her from symmetrical monotony was that ponytail she wore towards one side. This hadn't been her style during their last encounter; then it had been straight back, he knew, because he had made a point of letting down her hair to improve the composition.

Her festival garment — purple, wrong for the occassion — had been tied together blindfolded, by the looks of it, in a decorative bow that was limp and lopsided. The moment he at last noticed it it was as though nothing else mattered. It had to be fixed.

"Come here," he said, rising to his feet. She came to him obediently, awaiting his judgment. "Oh, my dear, my dear. Please don't tell me you went all day looking like that. Your whole ensemble is tied incorrectly. Absolutely horrid. Turn." Jhin clicked his tongue, surveying the damage. "Look at this." He untrussed the silk ribbons. "Do you just... destroy works of art wherever you go?"

"You can take it off if it bothers you." He pulled especially tight on the ribbons to make a show of it. "Hey, it was a joke!"

"I'd suggest you stay home from cultural events next time lest you embarrass yourself."

"I think you're the only one who noticed." Dya cocked her head to one side. "But I didn't see a lot of purple so I guess I might have stood out." She felt nothing but the warmth as his fingers accidentally brushed against her.

"Most people would pick up on that kind of social cue and realize their color was inappropriate," Jhin said sharply. "There. That's about the best I can do for it." His hands ghosted at her waist, and Dya turned in his loose hold to face him.

"Is it beautiful?" she asked, unable to read his face from behind that white mask.

"The ribbon is... nice. Of course, everything attached to it is beyond even my talent." Her lips were slightly parted. "Making a silk purse from a sow's ear, I believe the phrase is."

She was hurt by that, he noticed. Good.

"Well at least one of us can be lovely," she said, trying to recover. A breath shared between them, lasting a minute in her time, a moment in his. "You... should go. I imagine you have to get ready soon."

"Is that your little magic trick, knowing more about people than you should?"

She winked. "A woman's job is to know these things."

"That's going to get you killed," he said. If only she could die, he added silently. He managed about two steps down the hill before she called after.

"Ah, wait! How can I find you again?"

"I believe you've misunderstood," Jhin said, turning on his heel. "I'm afraid this is going to be our last conversation. You are going your way," — he waved his hand towards some random direction — "and I am going mine. There will be no more discussion about it." He began marching away. 

"Alright. Do you want like a... ten minute start? Or do you think you can manage?"

"Manage what?"

"Well, I'm wondering if I should go tell Shen right away to have the place evacuated or whether it would be more fair to give you a chance to set up first."

She underestimated how fast he could get to her with his long legs, and how easily he could lift her by the waist and slam her against the tree. His mask was close to her, his furious breaths audible.

"You have just crossed the line from nuisance to enemy, and I guarantee you will regret making an enemy of me."

"Oh... crap. I was hoping to cross to the other side of the line. Can we start over?" She held her hand out. "Hi, I'm Dya, and I think it's my destiny to help you."

"Your destiny was to die and you defied it." He refused a handshake for the second time. Maybe they didn't do handshakes in Ionia.

"There have to be parts of your job that you hate, right? Let me handle them. I want to help."

"I. Don't. Collaborate."

She tested him with the saddest look she could manage. He wouldn't budge. At last, Dya looked down at her feet and let out a sigh of resignation. "Okay, I understand," she said.

Satisfied, Jhin lowered his guard just long enough for her to duck under his arm and run down the hill screaming for Shen.

His long legs made him quite the sprinter when it was necessary.

✤✤✤✤

Another one of Jhin's talents was tying knots. If you were to lean over and glance in the full-length mirror, which adorned the far wall of that dimly lit room at the Married Spade where he had just that morning taken up residence, you would notice, as Dya did, the impressive level of artistry he afforded even in a task as simple as affixing a demon's arms to a bedpost.

"Everything you do is pretty," she said approvingly.

"If only the rest of the world held the same opinion, you stupid witch." He looked her over, sitting on his haunches, wondering whether he shouldn't try to gag her as well. It wasn't likely she would call for help, apparently under the impression this was all a game, but letting her run her mouth as she pleased bothered him regardless.

There was no time. "Stay here and don't make a sound," Jhin said. "If I'm not back by midnight it means something has gone wrong, and in that case, congratulations, you are the sole heir to the Golden Demon's legacy." He rose to his feet and gave her a mock bow.

"I'll try to make you proud," she said.

"I would implore you not to," he said, opening the door. "You'd do a piss-poor job of it and then my ghost would be forced to come back and haunt you."

"You promise?"

The door shut.

She made a sound that was something between a giggle and a sigh. Her arms were starting to get sore, but she had gotten herself into such a wonderful mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dumplings are Jhin's favorite food! ... Don't ask how she knows that. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	5. Pillow Talk!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last edited 4/9/18

What poetry it would have been to leave her to starve there. He told himself it was only because he'd left most of his costume under the bed that he just barely resisted the idea. His mask was invaluable, and the body suit was made of eel skin imported from Bilgewater, which these days was so expensive...

The room was totally dark when he first cracked the door open, the light from the hallway sconces falling just shy of revealing his prisoner. She was still there, wasn't she? Jhin stepped inside to set down his festival mask on the dresser and on the floor the case full of parts he used to extend Whisper into a long-range bloodied fountain pen. The prized weapon itself went in the empty drawer of the nightstand. Then he moved silently to the window, drawing open the curtains to let in what scant red light of the Blood Moon the cloud cover let through.

Sure enough he could make out the girl's shape, silent and totally still. She must have fallen asleep, but he kept his distance as he knelt by the bed, just in case.

Jhin pulled out the thick leather bag that held his signature clothes from under it, wanting to make sure its contents were all in place before he left. His hands went towards the thick gold buckles which kept the bag closed but he discovered them already undone. That was impossible. His head shot to Dya, who must have worked the rope somehow and was probably waiting to lash out at him. He slowly rose so as to not make a sound, opened the nightstand drawer and wrapped his fingers around Whisper's comforting grip. He circled around, pointing it towards her, but keeping his finger off the trigger. She was watching him, though the shadow of the bed kept her face obscured.

"Whatever you're planning isn't going to work," he announced.

"Wait," she cried out, "please don't shoot me. I couldn't get the buckles closed with my toes. I promise I tried." He didn't know what she was talking about, and wouldn't so long as the room was still shrouded in darkness.

Still aiming Whisper between her eyes — or where he supposed they would be — Jhin backed away one step at a time, as though challenging her to strike out with each step, until he was able to reach the lantern on the dresser. He carefully holstered his gun and fiddled with the bulb until a flash of orange lit the room.

Her hands were still tied as he had left them. His mask was on her lap.

"How—" He breathed in, rubbing his temples in frustration. Dya looked up expectantly, waiting for him to finish his thought, but Jhin was at a total loss for words. " _How?_ "

"I was looking under the bed for something sharp with my feet and found this instead," she explained.

"You what?" Jhin crouched in front of her and snatched the mask away, cradling it and inspecting it for blemishes as though the marks of her skin oil and mediocrity might be visible. He returned to the bag once again and retrieved a patterned navy handkerchief. Whisper went back on the bedside table, and he sat on the edge of the bed to focus on wiping the mask down.

"Sorry. I really wanted to see it up close. Your mask is... gorgeous."

His hand came to rest. "Yes," he said quietly. "It is."

A moment passed between them. She let out a breath. "I really don't mean to be annoying, Jhin. I'm just... not myself lately. I've never felt like this. I've never felt this way about anyone. I'm so in love with you I'm sort of starstruck."

"It's nice to find someone who appreciates my work," he offered, "but you cannot be in love. You know nothing about me."

"I saw you and heard you. I don't need to know you to fall in love with your movement and your shape."

Why does this child have access to poetry? He started to swab the mask again, each part in careful sets of four. He had never had an admirer before, someone who recognized him for his genius and his beauty and lavished him for it. And he had spent all day among people; unable to find a moment's peace even in the privacy of his own room, he was losing the energy to argue with her. "Such elegant words, so stupidly arranged," he muttered, the best he could manage.

"Yes, elegant, that's it!" Dya's face brightened. "You're elegant. The way you dance and speak and walk, even. Could be a serial killer yes, but there's a part of me that thinks when you're not on the stage, you're just a sweet intelligent man trying to make sense of a world that is inherently senseless."

"And that part of you is very stupid," Jhin said. Four times on the curve of the brow bone, four times on the widow's peak, four times on the chin. He took note of her silence and awkwardly cleared his throat. "But I will allow it to continue complimenting me, if that is its wish."

She sat up a little straighter, grateful to be wanted. "Okay. Um, I think people are too reductionist about you. The Golden Demon is not merely savage and ostentatious. There's an actor behind it. And an actor is a servant of his audience."

"I am more than a mere actor, my dear," he said, running a hand through his dark hair. Four on the right cheek, four on the cupid's bow, four on the left cheek.

"He turns and bows, tucking one foot back and sweeping his hand, to thank his audience for the honor of performance. And then, when he goes offstage, he removes his mask, he's polite and shy, and he hates crowds. That's the asymmetry of it. One half is covered, and one on display. But which eye is red, and which eye is blue?" Dya paused a moment to consider. "You could argue the red eye is the face of bloodlust, but that side of you is still so... flamboyantly submissive."

His gaze wandered to Whisper. At this hour, and in an inn with every room filled, planting a bullet in her head would only warrant his own death sentence. But it would be so satisfying to blast the smile from her lips.

"Also, I love whatever it is that makes you call things 'precious' and 'darling.' Oh. And 'lovely,' for the stuff that takes your breath away." Dya wanted to gesture wildly, but her enthusiasm was contained by the rope which kept her arms tied above her head.

Four again, four again, four again. And then there were all the nooks and crevices of the beveled swirls he had insisted on. They afforded such complexity to the piece, but there's no denying those things were a dust trap, even when nosy demons weren't touching parts of his costume.

"I almost already did," she was saying, "but I'd give my whole life for you to call me lovely. Really."

"Oh, Dya." Jhin chuckled and shook his head. "If only you were." He hoped that the resulting silence was a sign he had finally gotten through to her regarding her own undesirability.

Instead she said quietly, "I adore your laugh," and then let him continue his work until he was finished. Four more times on the forehead would have to make it clean enough. He knelt down in front of the bag again and set the mask on top of his other things with the kind of Ionian reverence so deep in his bones it could never be unlearned.

Dya tugged against her restraints. "Jhin, I can't feel my arms."

"That's a shame," he said.

"Pleaaase? If you cut me loose I won't say anything else for the rest of the night."

Jhin exhaled and got up, crossing to the dresser. She followed him with hopeful eyes as he approached holding a switchblade. He let the blade's silver lip hover just above the frayed edge of the rope, and met her eyes very seriously.

"Not. Another. Word." She nodded.

He sawed into the knots until they came apart and the loose remainder of what was once a rope fell to the floor. She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek in gratitude.

Jhin pushed her away, and wiped the spot in question with the back of his hand. "Don't do that." He moved away from her and sat on the bed again, tired but not wanting to lie down lest she take that as an invitation. He buried his face in his hands while Dya climbed to her feet and tried to work out the soreness in her arms.

When she was done she looked to him as though expecting orders, rocking back and forth on her heels. She lasted about a minute before speaking up. "Will you at least consider it?"

"Consider what?!" he snapped, his eyes bulging at her.

"Accepting my help."

"I work alone. And I told you to shut up. That is the end of the discussion."

"You barely remember to feed yourself, Mr. Genius Virtuoso." She walked over a took a seat next to him, unbidden. "I'll do the boring logistic stuff, and you can focus on your assignments. We'll both get to work on something we're passionate about."

Jhin sighed in annoyance. "I will _think_ about it. If you ask me again my answer will be no. Now please, _please_ go to sleep and let me hear my own thoughts."

But loving another person and not a thing was pointless; people were fragile, people were disloyal, people were ungainly and ordinary. Jhin had long known this, and that it was better to channel his passion into beautiful shapes than to offer it fruitlessly to those who would reject it or squander it all together.

Of course if everyone knew this truth there would be no beauty in showing it; the privilege of the vanguard was that it did not take long for the world to take notice or for fear to spread outwards wherever you touched.

Art was not a devotion that faltered, nor was it frivolous; it could not be changed by reading koans or studying the philosophies of the masses, for this passion was like a beating organ, which he cherished, and in the end was there any love more secure and more true than that one has for oneself?

Yes, she was decidedly stupid. For this reason she continued to look at him as though her eyes were taking pictures. Jhin knew the expression well; the gaze remained perfectly still while the mind arranged things into their rightful places; but her compositions emphasized a willful, moving subject, and they were pedestrian, aesthetic only insofar as they served a domestic purpose. His mental images were framed in museums and hers in living rooms; here the parlor's olive green was cool and muted, went decently with the gold and cream and Tyrian red he so liked to wear; here the dinner was warm and the tea was ready so that he would come home and smile for her; here the bed frame was long enough because he was so tall, and the v shape of his broad shoulders was so kingly against the master bedroom pillows, and his arms so strong, and he was naked beneath the sheets.

What a disgusting, ridiculous woman.

But Dya was right: she wasn't completely useless. As they boarded the boat she did carry his stuff without complaining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate to use the word "chuckle" for his laugh but it really is a chuckle isn't it


	6. The Light Shifts and Settles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took forever but as you'll see a lot happens in it and I had to be sure about the ending before I posted it. Warning: dubcon incoming

Day 1: Learned her first rule: the Virtuoso's assistant does not speak unless spoken to.

Day 4: Learned her second rule: the Virtuoso cannot be cuddled, carressed, or mollycoddled without squirming, is highly sensitive to soft tactile sensations and becomes irritable when lightly touched. Comment that this had to do with not being hugged by his mother was ignored.

Day 6: Discovered Jhin is more tolerant to massages and does not pull away from them, sometimes even losing his train of thought once she starts. Sweet nothings delivered during this time are not reciprocated.

Day 9: Woke up restless at 4am. Stole his mask and snuck into cargo to masturbate while holding it.

Day 10: Did it again, in their cabin this time. Felt better because he was close.

Day 11: Did it again. Got caught before climaxing. Apologized profusely, deciding she would not wish the scorn of a raging Khada Jhin on her worst enemy. Coped with trauma by counting the number of times he called her a whore in his tirade. 47 times. But he would not physically hurt her -- hurting was sacred; hurting was for intimacy.

Day 12: No words exchanged for three days. Only allowed in the cabin at night, and Dya was always to fall asleep first. Watched as mask subjected to every known cleaning agent available on the ship, despite her protests that she "did not face-fuck it." Grateful to be alive, likely due to the number of witnesses on board. Sheepish looks offered during daytime encounters unacknowledged.

Day 13: Made friends talking to fellow passengers, mostly older men. Most of them kind.

Day 15: Allowed back in the room, because he found any other company intolerable and missed having her there to listen to his genius. This was phrased as, "I don't trust a whore to keep herself from the men on this ship." Permitted to massage his hands and feet.

~~~

The little stagecoach thundered along the dirt road and its passengers watched the sky warily, expecting rain. They had been fortunate enough to avoid the storm while at sea but it persisted alongside them from coast to mainland like a steady vengeful eye. Beneath the gathering darkness, the Noxian countryside was the same as Noxian anything: grey and soul-sucking, as though the earth knew where it was and was too ashamed to show green.

A former Demacian spy was trying not to steal furtive glances at the serial killer who, sitting her opposite, had been watching her wordlessly now for over an hour and who would no doubt catch every single one. It was a hard gaze to meet. Though they had spoken many times now, meeting his eyes still made her terrified and wonderfully lightheaded, like being discovered in hiding. Today she lacked the energy to wrestle the twin instincts which told her to simultaneously flee and caress the source of her fear.

Though his posture was relaxed she knew he was still angry, because his eyes were steel blue -- a warning color. This was a most unnerving blue, the kind that turns people to stone, with a ring around the iris suggesting two unnatural rooms lit by an unseen source.

Dya still had no idea how he changed the color of his eyes, but remembered them being various blues, reds, and once amber on separate occasions. Blue when furious, red when jovial, amber when he was caught off-guard. Those were his three moods. No doubt amber was the original color because it was warm and powerless, and since their encounter at the festival he had kept it hidden from her, hoping she would forget.

"I want your opinion on something," he said, breaking the silence.

"What?" she blinked. "Since when have you ever wanted someone else's opinion?"

Jhin leaned forward until his elbows were on his knees. Shifting his weight caused the worn out carriage to creak loudly in protest. "How would you have felt if I had called you Heartbroken?" He paused, measuring her reaction.

"If you had what?"

"The work, dearest. I was going to call you Heartbroken, had I succeeeded. The idea being your broken heart would have been both the cause and the effect of our encounter." He focused intently on the space in front of him. "But that's so... obvious, isn't it? Here I was so convinced at the time it would be perfect, but the more I think on it now the more it strikes me as cliche."

She snorted in disbelief. "I'm glad to year you think about killing me _all_ the time."

"It just horrifies me, the thought that had I finished the masterpiece a ridiculous title might have ruined it," he said. "You deserve better than that, don't you think?"

"I think I deserve not to be murdered, in all honesty."

"Yes, and that's because you are shallow. It takes a certain artistic quality in a person to appreciate my genius. Forget I asked." Jhin retreated back to his original position, and after a momemnt Dya looked away too, leaning against the window.

"Be careful what you perceive as shallow water isn't just a trick of the light," she muttered, not intending him to hear. He awarded her a rare, genuine smile.

The coach driver sounded the horn that meant they were coming up on a way station. Jhin reached down towards the bag at his feet.

Dya fidgeted, sensing a shift in the mood. "Are you still mad at me?" she asked, but he answered by pressing a finger to his lips, intently listening for the driver's next movement.

Hearing nothing, he turned to her and said brightly, "I think today shall be a performance day, don't you, my dear?"

"That's a joke, right?"

"Not at all. I take my work extremely seriously." Jhin retrieved the folded eelskin body suit and laid it out on the seat beside him, running a hand over its smooth fabric. "And if you want to be my assistant, you will need to prove yourself worthy of my time." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Find a way to distract them while I get prepared. Seduce them if you must, since that is your... talent."

"What the hell does that mean?"

He continued unbuttoning his shirt. "It means whatever you think it means," he said.

She leaned in and continued in a harsh whisper: "So you're going to kill him, and then what? I'm supposed to learn to drive a horse-drawn wagon?"

"Of course not. I doubt these horses have been sensitized to gunfire. It shouldn't be more than ten miles to Krexor, in any case."

Something interesting about pairs of criminals, Dya noticed: the burden of uncertainty which would otherwise fully incapacitate one person can be easily mitigated when working as a unit. One person can feel wholly guilty and still be complicit in an act of killing so long as they are being shepherded by one who is unrestrained.

The carriage slowed to a stop, then rocked slightly as the driver hopped off and began unfastening the animals' harnesses.

Dya sighed in annoyance. "How much time do you need?" she asked.

"Not more than a few minutes."

She rubbed at her temples and tried to sound stern. "Fine," she said, "but that's it. I'm not doing anything else."

Jhin laughed quietly. "No, no no no, my dear, you are going to watch." She was verging on defiance, but a man of his talents could persuade her easily. "I am nothing without my audience..."

At the point he pulled her in and kissed her, Dya was not technically planning a murder, but the way she became limp and melted against him she was not likely to obstruct one either.

"...and I am nothing without you," he said softly. They both knew this was a lie, but she was so happy to be lied to.

The young woman stepped down from the coach and surveyed her surroundings. A gentle grassy slope separated the road from the swing station -- an unremarkable stone building and the corral which shared a corner with it.

She watched as two hostlers approached to relieve the team of horses, which they led back towards the stable. A fourth man leaned in the open doorframe of the cabin, watching them work. Dya stepped forward, hugging herself to protect against the afternoon chill, and began an idle stroll to stretch out her legs.

Noxian horses were ash-black and bred for strength. The one waiting in the furthest stall to be rotated in was especially large. It stared back at her with dark, glassy eyes, nostrils flaring slightly.

"Hope it doesn't rain before you get into town," said a voice, interrupting her thoughts. The station keeper chewed a wad of something or other. "What brings you here anyway?"

"Business."

"Oh yeah? What's your trade?"

"Fortune telling," she said. The man made a non-committal sound that suggested he had no interest in the matter, and then the conversation was over.

Dya looked back to where the carriage was, but the curtains were drawn and the door closed. He likely didn't need much, just for the men to be turned away when he stepped out with full guns and costume. But she wasn't going to seduce anyone, that was for sure. Instead she stepped out into the grass away from the station keeper, and forced herself to fall face-first in the most clumsy fashion possible.

"Ow," she said loudly.

"You alright there, miss?" the man asked, walking towards her.

Dya propped herself up and rolled over. She grabbed her left leg and stared down at her foot with a whimper. "I think so... I'm such an idiot. I must have twisted it."

"Can you stand?" he asked, offering an uncertain hand.

Dya wouldn't yield to him in the slightest, making herself seem weak and heavy. This got the reaction she wanted -- he hollered to the other three men and got them looking in their direction. The younger ranchhand hurried over to assist, a boy with a long face and spider-like limbs who was impossibly skinny. The two supported her under her arms on either side, not gently by any means, and lifted her up to a limping position.

"There's a cot inside. You'll be able to rest for a bit," said the older man, ushering her in.

The inside of the cabin was dark and somber, holding not much more than a cot, a desk, and a tall shelf for supplies. A low fire crackled in the hearth on the far side of the room, clearly on its way out. They brought her to the cot where she could lie down and nurse her pretend injury.

"Try to keep it elevated," the keeper said. She nodded, wanting to seem desperate but agreeable. Satisfied, the man returned to the desk on the other end of the room, while the boy stood in front of the fire fidgeting, uncertain of whether he was still needed. The cot had thin sheets and the smell of frequent use. Dya bent her knee, not having anything to prop her foot on, and waited in nervous silence.

Minutes passed. Then it began.

First a loud bang from outside. Then the shriek of startled horses, then shouting. She sat up and felt her stomach drop.

The station keeper didn't hesitate, turning to grab a well worn Noxian battle ax from its hook on the wall. She thought it might have been decorative coming in, but this was Noxus. She ought to have known better.

"Robbers," he spat. "Not on my watch."

"Wait--" Dya said despite herself. _If you go out there you'll die._

He barely gave her any notice. "Stay here," he said, halfway out the door, and the boy stumbled after. The door swung shut behind them, leaving her alone in the murky room.

She stood to follow, but all the courage she had in her suddenly drained out her feet and into the dirt floor, rooting her in place. What had she done? It was one thing to watch a murder from the shadows, but now she had played a part in it. Next time, would she be the one firing the gun?

What if Jhin gets hurt?

A second gunshot thundered out.

He told her to watch, and would be mad if she didn't. The fear of making him mad won out just slightly over the fear of whatever she would find out there. Still, it took all of her strength to reach the doorway.

Dya pushed the wooden door open. The sky was turbid and gray. The large horse from earlier was thrashing in terror and crying out. Then she saw _him_ , fully costumed, out in the open, brandishing a gun behind that beloved mask with its unreadable smile.

And then she looked down.

Dya flinched almost immediately, but even then the afterimage was burned into the back of her eyelids. Two men down, one lying prostrate, but the driver's face she'd seen, and it had a lot of red, like half of it had been blown straight off. He hadn't even been curled up to protect himself. The sudden pain had blindsided him, leaving him frozen and wide-eyed like a stunned fish.

The station keeper too was staring at the carnage, standing there uselessly with an ax and an open mouth, like he had been expecting a gang of underage hoodlums with smokebombs and wooden swords. "What... What the hell is this?"

"An ax. How barbaric," Jhin replied with obvious distaste, though she could hear him smile behind the mask. "But at least one of you is armed. That _does_ add to the drama."

"What do you want, huh? Horses? That about all we got in a place like this." He tightened his two-handed grip on the ax handle and risked a step forward. "Or did you just come here with a gun 'cause you're a sick fuck?"

"I'm so sorry." Jhin walked towards the man, closing the distance between them dangerously. He gave Whisper a well-practiced twirl before pointing it forward. "We're going to have to cut your scene short, I'm afraid. Your dialogue is terrible."

The man sneered, a laugh tempered with visceral disgust. "Hiding behind your gun and your costume. You're a sick fuck and a coward--"

Dya jumped when the gun went off, but damn it all if her heart didn't flutter watching him spin around and fire like that. A clean shot to the neck, executed like a signature dance move. It felt wrong, like decorating a stranger's casket with her favorite things.

"Everyone's a critic," Jhin mused aloud, pressing four new shells into the magazine.

He couldn't let his gaze linger there, but he felt the greatest twinge of excitement when he saw her watching from the cabin doorway and didn't know why. Instead his eyes roved to the last trembling farmhand. "That leaves the boy then," he said, pretending he hadn't just been distracted.

With a fluorish, Jhin produced the scope attachment which turned Whisper into a long-ranged rifle, lunging backwards to steady his aim for the finale.

"Dance for me, will you?" he called out. "Something graceful." The boy stood completely rigid, his eyes dilated and ribcage expanding with shallow breaths.

Without warning he began sprinting in the other direction, gangly limbs cutting through the air at sharp angles.

She had the faintest hope he would escape.

There was a crack, and his left calf erupted in blood. He skittered forward into the mud, then began dragging himself onward, pushing with his skinny forearms and kicking with his good leg in a frog stroke.

"No, no, _tarantella_ is _no good!_ " Jhin shouted. He feigned dismay but it was obvious he was toying with his prey, deciding rules on the fly of an unwinnable game that would justify murder. "Death is the jaws of a wolf. It is not a spider bite. If you can't do anything with your legs that isn't ugly then you might as well lose them."

The Virtuoso fired again, this time hitting the boy's right upper thigh, bringing his desperate clambering in the mud to a halt. He fired again, laughing, at the shoulder, but too close to the spine -- the boy convulsed uncontrollably, now covered in a red blanket. The more he was wounded the less graceful he got. Only death would finish the piece. One shot to the back of the head and at last the boy went still, leaving the Virtuoso and his assistant alone with the approaching storm, the horses, and the sound of frightened crows, the last of them scattering from the treetops in all directions.

Then there was silence.

Khada Jhin stood to his full height and began disassembling the gun while humming tunelessly. He twirled Whisper around in his fingers once before returning it to its holster, then, for the first time, studied his masterpiece in its entirety.

This was not a performance that would be forgotten. The rains would come and partially taint it, but he did not mind because an audience had witnessed it at the time of creation, and that was so thrilling. Every kill was like a gift to himself; waiting just long enough between them made each performance feel like he was coming alive for the first time.

Beneath the body suit his skin was hot and flushed like it always was after killing: partly from the rush of power, partly from the shame -- which would grow, later, and consume him hours after the fact -- and partly from the arousal somewhere low in his stomach. He took in a deep breath through his nostrils to slow his heart rate, letting it out with a shudder.

He tried to walk away and failed.

This was always where Icarus fell. No matter how divine he made himself out to be, Jhin's humanity was inextricably linked to the performance. Acts of intimacy which to him otherwise were but meaningless contact of muscles and teeth suddenly made sense after he killed. When he made art he wanted to be intimately touched, to feel hot and frantic and wet against someone else's body.

But he knew, as he always knew, that giving into this need would make the guilt that came later so much worse. This ecstasy would subside, this dreamlike state would dissipate, and with nothing left to feed on, his thoughts would turn to self-loathing, the urge to claw out his own flesh so he could dispose of that sick, oily part of his body that lulled his hips forward, made his penis hard and stripped him of godhood by holding pleasure out in front of him like a carrot on a stick.

Once he had considered cutting it off, the whole thing, just to be rid of it, yet the blade of the Virtuoso, who was so intimate with flesh, who disrupted the human body so easily, had wavered at the thought of permanent self-mutilation. His own recognizable human confines, which he numbered and labelled and traced over the years like a handful of stars, were a running joke at the expense of his higher self. Who was this person, this human avatar, to degrade the Artist which used him as a vessel, to defile Him with these disgusting aches?

It was man's only hope to strive towards perfection. It was his fate, it seemed, to fall from grace and reveal himself nothing more than an animal. But this time he would resist the urges, because Khada Jhin was not an animal.

He was not an animal until he turned and saw Dya, who was frightened and shaking, who was in awe of his work, who was helpless, and who would feel warm around him, so much warmer than his hands.

She looked down when he approached and it began to drizzle. How pale she was, how unusually pale. Breaking open her skin. Warm blood. His cock twitched. Jhin said nothing and waited for her to look at him, but it became apparent she wanted to avoid meeting his eyes. This reaction displeased him. He wanted her to be afraid of him but feel safe with him all at once.

It was the click of the gun that got her attention. Dya's head snapped forward and she gasped. Her eyes followed down Whisper's barrel to find him looking at her expectantly, same smile as always.

"Wonderful," he said, replacing the gun in its holster. "It seems you're still alive after all. I was worried you had been frozen in place and I would have to leave you."

"No... No, I'm good." She knew what he wanted, which is why she tried to sidestep him, to slip away, but Jhin followed, trapping her against the wall with his palms on either side.

"You did well, my dear," he said in a tone he hoped was gentle, inviting.

"It's going to rain," she said. Why did she say that? What did that have to do with anything? He pressed his hips into her and she felt it everywhere in static.

"Perhaps a... celebration is in order?"

Dya looked at him, really looked at him, and he wondered to himself whether this was the same wanton woman who had been so desperate for him and who was now staring back, a frightened girl, hair dampened down by humidity and eyes watering and looking for all the world like he had just slapped her in the face.

"It's going to rain," she said.

"Then we shall go inside. I cannot have my assistant catching cold." He lightly touched her chin.

She didn't move. "Jhin... Not now."

"This cannot wait!" he snapped, surprising both of them. Jhin steeled himself. He couldn't get angry. Scaring her would make this more difficult, and the longer it took to finish the more opportunity he would have to stop and hate himself for what he was doing. He might've just taken her wordlessly against the wall there as soon as the urge came to him, but in truth he needed her guidance -- he had no experience with another living person.

Jhin reached back and removed his mask, holding it out for her. "Perhaps you require... inspiration," he said softly. Dya took it with some hesitation, then stared down at it. She seemed remorseful, running one fingertip down its center. She looked at him, face now covered solely by the black bodysuit, and picked out the shape of his mouth.

With one hand on his chest, she moved her face towards his until a metal finger touched her lips. "You know what I want. Nothing else."

"It's going to rain, Jhin!" she cried out in frustration, because she could not think of anything else.

Jhin grabbed her jaw with sudden force and glared down at her. "I worked very hard to perform for you," he whispered,single eye shining -- cherry red, for the costume. "The courteous thing would be to return that performance."

"Not like this! I can't do this right now!"

"You have no right to refuse me." His strong hands went for her clothes, unfastening her belt and pulling her pants down roughly. She didn't stop him. She wanted a different Jhin, one with a vulnerability. This one thought he was invincible.

The sky opened up to him and so did she.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a dream about an extremely uncooperative black horse. Its name was Boots. It randomly changed sizes with its mood. I paid $80 for it. I tried to enter a race with it but we only crossed the finish line 90 minutes after the race ended.


	7. Rooted in Mud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both the main characters are expressions of me. Ironically, despite the fact Dya is essentially a generic self-insert character, Jhin is the one I draw on more of my personal experiences to write. His thirst for beauty, how he views himself — as someone who needs to be infallible and yet is inescapably human — and the crushing self-loathing and guilt he feels when he fails to live up to his own impossible standards are all just lifted from my own life. -A-

Sometimes Jhin did dumb things like locking the same door four times. There he was, standing with the room key twisting and untwisting, each time with a pause, until he was satisfied the room was totally secure. It was not secure until he did this four times. The same process in reverse was required every time he went out, which is why it was usually better for Dya to handle these sorts of things, but she had been so tired it hadn't even occurred to her.

"I think something's wrong with you," she mumbled, knowing even face-down on the bed exactly what he was doing. Jhin ignored her. When he was done, he headed straight to the washroom and closed the door.

Dya listened to the pattering of heavy rain, thinking of nothing but the tautness in her calves from walking ten miles in the rain with heavy equipment on a road that was sinking. Soreness in her legs, bruises on her shoulder blades, and a chill that had soaked into her bones.

The word she had put off for a while, as they walked, was rape. Now it was lingering in the room with her, daring her to react, and yet she had no reaction for it. "I guess I was raped," she said into the bed linens, nonplussed, popping the p sound like a cherry. "Rape."

She tried to remember how it felt. Friction and cold, mostly. The storm had been a welcome distraction. Somewhere buried deep inside was anger, but closest to her heart was the simple frustration that he would not hold her and keep her warm afterwards. She had been so cold.

But the act itself was no more devastating a blow than anything else he had done. Her body was a fortress whose sanctity and solitude she had given up long ago, when she first started working intelligence. It was strong but it was no longer safe or quiet.

Dya rolled over onto her back, staring up at the bed's canopy with her hands behind her head. "So, me too, huh?" she asked no one in particular. "You thought I couldn't just forgive him for hurting others, that wouldn't be enough? It had to be me too? You think I wouldn't forgive him for that? Well you're wrong, I'm very stupid." And she was -- kind and stupid and infinitely patient.

In the other room Jhin was having a staring contest with the mirror and losing by a wide margin. A stupid game. He brought his hand back in a tight fist intending to smash the disgusting man in the glass. Too much noise. There was no use drawing unnecessary attention to the tenants of his room, not if he wanted things to go smoothly here.

Every moment surrounding what had happened at the way station was so painfully clear. Standing outisde the fact looking in, borrowing their clarity, it was so easy to condemn himself for having been careless. Jhin was used to guilt, little dull pangs of it splashing in his stomach like rainwater. This was not guilt. The filthy water had become ice, dagger-shaped, which expanded by the minute and was rending him in two.

A violin played softly enough sul ponticello has a sort of relaxing quality, the gentle hissing noise of rosin against string emitting shrill harmonics. For a moment, the sound of it in his head soothed him. It had no musical quality; the bow whisked along slowly, on the inevitable track towards a precipice. His entire insides a muted scream.

Dya had enchanted him. How he had danced to her tune like a mindless doll! The Golden Demon amazed her with a private performance and instead of showing humility or gratitude she used whatever that magic was she keeps so well hidden to seduce and defile him as recompense. Dya was the witch, the demon of lust, she was the whore and he was the pure one. She tricks and sullies him and then has the _gall_ to blame him throughout the charade, as though he is the aggressor. Between the two of them Dya was the real demon, conniving under that infuriating facade of innocence and purity.

But that couldn't be true. As soon as it had arrived the thought fell away, and other ones came, familiar ones with names for him he knew all too well. Monster. Disgusting. Low as dirt. Awful, how awful he was. Magic or not, he had _fucked_ her because he couldn't control himself. Khada Jhin had been given all these tools and nice things, this gift from the gods, and he had to waste it being human! One after another the thoughts arrived, so effortlessly, so relentlessly that they must have belonged there, they must have been true. No one worthy of calling themselves an artist would give into lust as easily as he had. He was merely a monster pretending.

His thoughts had an inclination towards sharpness. There was a straight razor among the shaving things provided for guests on the countertop, but no, not here. The location was too peaceful and domestic; it would confine the limits of the damage he wanted to do.

He opened the door and crossed the room without so much as looking at her.

Dya followed his movements sleepily, unable to find the energy to ask where he was headed. If he had intended his departure to look dramatic, the effect was somewhat dampened when he was forced to unlock the door four times and then secure it another four from the other side. She wanted to laugh. Then the sounds of his footsteps disappeared down the hall.

That was the first night Jhin came back with injuries. Sometimes these were accidents from his work (as it turned out, Noxians were considerably more paranoid and harder to kill), but more often he earned them, intentionally, as a habit, to show to her like trophies. When he wanted to be Jhin was already extremely punchable by pacifist standards. Krexor and its bored mercenaries by the barful could be provoked to much deadlier ends.

The first time she had flown to him like a worrisome bird, prompting him to uncross his arms so she could tend the wounds with a dampened washcloth, he swatted her away. The cuts themselves were an incidental detail of which he would remind himself between thoughts by digging his nails into them. Pain kept him anchored to the world as he stared at the window with a look of utter despair. He told her he wanted to bleed. He said, "This world is so ugly it's gotten inside of me and won't get out."

But she would still insist on dressing his wounds every time, as much as Jhin bristled. Eventually the novelty of being tended to won out over the need to let himself suffer. He would watch in curious silence as she dabbed herbs and wrapped bandages around his cuts, as though expecting at any moment he would learn it was a all trick and she had poisoned him.

"How can you be like this?" he asked. He had never had friends. She looked at him with gentle eyes, overcome by this obvious and sudden truth.

"Like what?" she said.

"The way you are. This behavior is... deviant. Explain to me what you're doing right now."

"I'm putting bandages on an idiot."

"For what reason?"

Dya brushed the bangs out of his eyes.

"Because seeing him hurt makes me unhappy," she said quietly. Between the drawing salve, the tea tree oil, and the yarrow poultice against his raw flesh wounds the man hardly flinched, but a single peck on his ear made him fidget and hiss as though it burned.

"You-- misunderstand the purpose." With his arms stretched out on the table for her inspection, he had nothing with which to push her away. Now he was twisting and writhing to dodge her playful kisses, with little success. "I am hurting myself for your sake, my dear."

Dya scoffed. "For my sake." She tended a cut between his neck and shoulder with the warm cloth.

"As penance."

"Penance for what? Killing people?"

He wouldn't say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering my Runeterra is identical to canon except it has working indoor plumbing. I cannot accept the fact that Jinx is from a world without toilets. I can't. I won't.


	8. Another Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think you could sum up every chapter of this story as, "Jhin fails hard at relationships."

Jhin was in total darkness. There was something on top of him — earth, the entire earth. He had been buried underground, a shallow grave only about a foot beneath the surface. He knew it was raining, because he could hear it thudding down from within the earth, and the ground above him was cold and wet, dripping downwards and turning the cradle of dirt around him into mud.

He knew there was someone about to dig him up, and that the dirt was fresh, so he could easily push his way out if he wanted to, but he was deadly afraid of what — or who — might be up there. If he didn't move, would he eventually drown? Did they have a shovel? If they dug into the shallow grave, overestimated its depth, would the shovel's blade carve into his face? He heard the muffled sound of their voice and knew they would start digging soon. They might dig with their hands, or just rip off the earth like a bandage, all at once. Jhin couldn't breathe. But he didn't want to be seen like this. He didn't want the light to expose him as he was, helpless and covered in muck.

The voice sounded again. It was deep, and male. He didn't need to hear the words to know it. That was Kusho's son, Shen. Shen was coming to dig him up. Shen was coming to hurt him.

All at once the grave was opened. But he couldn't see anyone; just white light.

"No!" he cried out, sitting up suddenly. The room was dark and quiet. He heard the muted splash of rain from outside, but it was just a sprinkling, not suffocating like it had been in the dream.

Jhin was breathing and he was alive, and Shen was not after him. Or at least he wasn't close.

"Gods," Dya whispered next to him, more stunned than anything. That had been the weight; she had been curled up on top of him and had tumbled off when he'd bolted upright. She was not _supposed_ to be on top of him — no physical intimacy in bed without his permission was one of his hard and fast rules — and must have thought she could get away with it once he was asleep. She rubbed her eyes and tried to make out his shape in the dark. "Okay, point taken. Virtuoso gets night terrors if you fall asleep on top of him."

He glanced over his shoulder and caught the moonlight winking in her eyes, which were wide open and shiny, like a doll's. Kill her and they would stay open forever.

"I've told you many times, I require a great deal of personal space in order to function," he said at an impatient clip.

"I know, I... I did not expect that. I wasn't even asleep yet."

"You _know,_ and yet you keep doing these things that cause me to suffer."

"I can't not cuddle with you, Jhin. You're so cute." She reached forward to rub his shoulder. But Jhin was faster, catching her forearm in a vicegrip before she could touch him and returning a cold glare. Her smirk fell as she barely made out the hard lines of his face.

"Sorry," she whispered. The lines became more severe.

"Why do you continue to disregard the things I say?" he sneered.

"You have to understand I've never met anyone like you, Jhin. I'm... still learning. I need you to be patient with me." Her arm was frail. With the pressure he was applying now, it would be so easy for him to break it. "Please."

"I don't have that kind of time or patience."

Jhin got up from the bed, still gripping her arm, and pulled her along with him into the bathroom. He forced her against the sink while her stomach made untidy knots and then shut the door, eclipsing the room in total darkness. He was familiar enough with the layout; there was only a second before the sudden hiss of a match was struck and the golden kerosene bulb came to life, and then she saw the look on his face and missed being blind.

He reached for her arm once again and wrestled without much resistance until it was face-up on the countertop, swathed in an amber glow. He kept it pinned down towards the elbow with his left hand.

"What..." The color drained from her face.

In his right he was twirling a straight razor, staring down at her exposed and hairless wrist as though imagining lines on a canvas.

"I do have a switchblade, if you prefer," he confessed, a smile pulling at his features. "But it would be so much fun to see how far we get into the carpal bones with this one."

"No, no no." Dya covered her face with her remaining arm. "Jhin, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." But as much as she appeared to struggle, she did not try to break free of his grasp.

The lack of defiance was almost an insult to him. She couldn't have possibly thought this was all an act to intimidate her. He had no qualms dismembering someone if he thought it would solve a problem — and she knew that. So why was she making this difficult, standing there without the slightest resistance, showing him mercy when it was not her right or her place to do so? It would be easy to begin cutting if he could see her as a petulant child, and yet she would not allow it. He gritted his teeth.

"You will learn that testing me is a mistake," he said, digging the blade just enough so that blood bubbled around it — a warning, enough to get her to flinch and cry out. It was red and like sparkling syrup in the light and lovely.

"I'm so sorry, Jhin," she mewled. "I know I made you unhappy. But please, just talk to me."

He looked at her. "I have been talking. You have chosen not to listen."

"Talking— I mean talking— without any games."

"Games?" Jhin paused for a moment. This was the apparently the wrong thing to say. "Do you think I'm playing games with you? I'll tell you a game, darling. It goes like this: My father holds my mother like this, in this same position, intending to cut into her arm the way I am going to do to you now. The person being cut is not allowed to win. The lights must be off; a child stands in the doorway, awake and restless because he had been sent to bed hungry. She is complacent, like you're trying to be, because he has already played this game with her so many times. Allow me to demonstrate."

He made a thin slice across her arm. She hissed in response, the adrenaline making her sensitive to his every movement.

"At some point," he says in a low voice, "the human spirit simply surrenders. It's beautiful."

"Jhin. Put the razor down. Please."

"I was not yet twelve," Jhin said over her, "but because I had told him I wanted to be a musician and not succeed him as the head of his failing martial arts school, he decided my poor mother, the singer and dancer, would be punished. I tried to stop him from cutting her and for my impertinence he took the index, middle, and ring finger from her left hand. There is not one day I think of it and have not felt guilt wind around my stomach like a snake."

His words were punctuated with lines. He was drawing flowers.

"This was a no-name town in Zhyun. A useless town, meaningless. Small. An act of such violence ripples out like a current. One day, suddenly, all the people who had been so content to let her suffer in silence wondered what happened that caused their favorite songbird to lose three of her fingers and become so nervous she never uttered a note again. What they were told is that the left-handed woman lost them in a cooking accident, as though _anyone_ would be stupid enough to believe such a thing." He had drawn tiny, criss-crossing ribbons up the length of her forearm, and now stopped, looking down at his work. "But they pretended to. No one ever tried to help. And that... stupid _bitch_ did nothing but protect him, right up until he died. You're both the same. Little song birds who fall into a spider's nest and bless the spider. Do you know what she said to me on the day of her rescue? It was not gratitude I saw in her eyes; it was fear. And she asked, 'what have you done?' 'what have you done?'"

Dya was crying without making sound. "I'm sorry," she said.

"They always said I took after her." He cupped her face, tears running down her cheeks and onto his fingers. The memory of his father repulsed him, but he couldn't deny the exhiliration of having this much power over someone. And if she was going to keep letting him do as he liked, then she should have been expecting this. Jhin did not need anyone. He was giving her his time and company as a favor. Dya had failed to respect his rules. She couldn't expect mercy for that. "But you know me so much more intimately, my love," he said. "I think you'll find I'm rather much more like my father."

"No, you aren't, Jhin. You're not like this. You don't hurt people because you're angry!"

Jhin laughed at that darkly, until his face fell into a sudden scowl. "Oh?" he asked. "Why is it I 'hurt' people, then?"

She avoided his eyes and swallowed as though the answer were stuck in her throat. "Because you can't do anything else," she said quietly.

He threw the knife to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been at this shit for two years and only learned like two days ago that Jhin is ambidextrous. I just kind of assumed the "red right hand" thing made him right-handed... hmm...


	9. A Flower Named for Regret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out. I was too busy having Jhin's mental health problems to focus on writing them.

Angry people had so much money. Dya sometimes went and spent small sums of it on useless things, as she did that morning, because Jhin either didn't care that this money went missing or didn't notice. Most likely he didn't notice. Material and logistical things tended to slip into the background when he was devising his plans; it was as though he made a point of forgetting to eat or to wash himself, because it was when he was immersed and forgetful of these things, of the banality of his own existence, that he was happiest. No doubt the money he made was only a means and its exact amount was of no consequence.

That morning Dya went to the strange all-purpose apothecary which was her most frequent destination during her idle time in Krexor. It was so fascinating to browse its displays of concoctions and adulterants, the kind of which would never be so openly found in Ionia or Demacia. A pervasive and sturdy moral code such as theirs soaked into the very infrastructure of a place. You'd be lucky to find an aphrodisiac in an Ionian apothecary even if you had a prescription, but this Noxian shop had a bottle in the window and the passersby thought nothing of it.

Of course, any light-hearted plans for aphrodisiacs belonged to an erstwhile and more optimistic version of herself. The Dya that had almost had a hand cut off this morning instead let betrayal and hurt turn into anger, and then anger into the singular determined vision of water hemlock.

Jhin had left before the knife had even finished clattering against the hardwood floor, presumably to gather his thoughts, as though he was the one who had been hurt. The morning light was just barely creeping over the horizon, and the shop would not be open yet for hours, so she had had to wait.

She'd heated water for tea, and then had sat down at the table with a quill in hand and flipped open to an empty page of her weathered notebook, the one she had more dilligently maintained back when this had been something about keeping track of a serial killer. She had passed the time writing frantically, desperately.

✤✤✤✤

Jhin couldn't be sure if he was just lousy at street fighting or he was never really trying. He was used to holding his pride like a close secret, so allowing those hooks to land and bruise him to the point of earning a reputation as the unnamed tavern punching bag didn't bother him. Whatever sense of accomplishment they felt from bruising him was meaningless, knowing as he did that these boorish men he so detested were so cosmically insignificant. He was only allowing himself to be abused as part of an exchange — for them, a stroke to the ego and a means of physical release, almost sparring, and for him the raw pleasure of being beaten within an inch of his life. For now the feeling was merely cathartic, though under better circumstances he might let his opponent's hands find their way to his neck or not work so hard to inhibit his bodily responses or keep his breathing even.

Imagine his father's shame if he could see him now, returning battered and bruised to the room at the inn after purposefully (he hoped) losing yet another fight. By Father's rules, any one of these scuffles should have begun and ended by staking an enemy's hand to the table or severing an Achilles' tendon before they even knew what had hit them. He used to quip that only an idiot began a duel by asking for one, but the philosophy of the surprise attack wasn't one Jhin had ever agreed with.

Still, he had to wonder if, through the years of developing his own technique of wild magic and elaborate weaponry, he had neglected his hand-to-hand combat skills beyond repair. He had not been able to dodge quite as many blows as he intended, which was a problem. Something in the back of his mind told him that he may not find anyone waiting to nurse his wounds as he opened the door.

He shielded his eyes as he entered from the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the facing window, and shut the door behind him without looking. He didn't lock it. There was no point. Instead he looked around the place with a neutral gaze that belied his internal panic. He was waiting for something to jump out at him, to point at him and demand justice for what he had done.

When there was no sound, no accusation, it was almost worse. The room had been cleaned, his suit waiting for him on the bed, folded neatly, and her absence thudding against his chest like a second heartbeat.

 _And what did you expect?_ a cruel part of him asked. Cutting her hands, and not for any performance, but only because he'd wanted to, because he was angry at her continued existence. He knew he had been right to feel angry, he was sure of it, but now another feeling crawled in his chest and settled uncomfortably beside the indignation. Sadness, almost. Fear.

The only items out of place in that tidy room were a leather-bound journal on the table and an empty teacup beside it. The journal might have been new, but he couldn't be sure, because Jhin had never cared enough to look through Dya's things. There was probably nothing inside of interest, but perhaps there was. He would be remiss not to at least check for a parting message.

As he approached it and made to sit down he caught a glimpse of a figure in the corner of the room.

Jhin turned, steadying himself as though expecting to be ambushed, but his caution was unwarranted. It wasn't moving. He recognized that body on floor next to the bed, curled into a ball.

What had she done?

He crossed the room in a hurry. Surely she could not be dead, but there were still ways an immortal could wound itself. But as he moved to inspect for injuries, he found none. Her chest rose up and down gently and without effort. Beneath her bandaged forearm, held tightly against her body, was a pillow dressed in one of his red shirts. Dya faced him with worship even still. He caught himself smiling and corrected himself at once.

Jhin turned away. He had no explanation for her position on the floor, but it seemed she was only asleep. Relief loosened at his muscles, dissolving the tight grasp of worry. Neither of these sensations were welcome to him, nor was the elation he felt that someone had _survived_ Khada Jhin, twice, and could sleep easily, despite everything. The sensations gripped him all the same.

The quiet afternoon settled around him, bringing with it the silence he so dreaded. Silence was the drawn curtains and empty stage on which his most terrible thoughts danced freely. His ears were ringing from the lack of sound, and he briefly considered waking her. He had always called Dya's constant chatter an annoyance, but in truth only her words, which were so meandering and pointless, bothered him; the sound had become a welcome distraction.

He could not be so cruel as to wake her.

Jhin knelt at the table where she had been writing and stared at the journal. Its cover revealed nothing of what might lurk inside. He pried it open carefully, as though it were a delicate artifact which might easily tear, and started to read.

The earliest pages were dated a month previous. The entries were terse, each line with a new observation or discovery: "Left Golden Bird SE exit 16:42." "Target has no apparent relation, total stranger." "Apparently uses blades — might be hidden on his person." She had been stalking him longer than he realized, but for what reason would a vengeful demon keep such a meticulous data log of their quarry? The lines became increasingly more distressed as the days passed. "Killed a man, I watched." "Fuck!" "There will be others. Stop stop stop." "What's Demacia's role in this?" "Can't sleep (05:00). Dreams again." "Kisses and a beautiful mask." "Dance with me. Sing for me." She had recorded his doings up until the night of her failed murder.

Jhin ran a finger down the page. How could anyone find him insane, or evil? Whatever had so long ago possessed him into becoming the Golden Demon had taken her, too. She had seen him — she had seen the flower — and her reporting changed to notions of beauty, that thing which could not be observed dispassionately, which is not documented for truth, but because the disease demands to be committed to memory. That's how it spreads. That's how he gave it to her. She had caught it by observation.

After a handful of blank pages the writing changed. A page was cross-hatched entirely black, the spaces between the lattice tight and claustrophobic. The strokes had been deliberate, frustrated, obsessive even — a few had torn through the paper.

On the facing page was a diary entry, all previous discretion and initials forsaken for girlish intimacy. Khada Jhin, Khada Jhin, Khada Jhin, written in the handful of distinct cursive styles she could muster, surrounded by drawings of flowers. She wasn't much of a sketch artist, he noted. Then she wrote:

"I want him to remove my heart. Then I won't have to put up with it.

Khada Jhin tried to cut my hands off last night. He was scared of something, and I wanted to soothe him. I made a mistake. I don't mind living like this, but sometimes it's so hard not having anyone else. Without that third person in the room you start to lose your reference point for what's normal. Jhin is not normal. Cutting off my hands is NOT NORMAL.

He killed four people the other day and raped me. I feel horrible writing that down. I realize all I've wanted to do is sleep with him, and I am awful, and maybe I deserve this. But I was so, so frightened. I thought he was going to gut me like an animal.

I couldn't think for most of it, except of how much I wanted him to hold me afterwards and tell me everything was okay. Why? I kept thinking, please just _hold me_ because it is so damn cold outside, like any form of tenderness would cancel this out or something, like it would all just be a dream. Noxian rain is freezing.

I'm drinking rue herb tea. I bought it the day after but waited until just now to drink it because it meant admitting to myself that this whole thing happened. I know I'm just being paranoid, but I can't risk it. I don't want him to get mad and hurt me again if something happens...

Either way... I'd never let a child inherit his mind. Smart and unsatisfied are the two worst things anyone could possibly be.

I can only tell you why I'm doing this when I hear his voice. When he stops talking or I can't see his face I forget, and I think I hate him. Then I look at his stupid photograph, or remember his laugh, or his olive skin, and I love him so much I can't stand it. And then he hurts me."

An old photo of him — where the hell had she gotten such a thing? — was being used as a bookmark on the last page. He had never seen a picture of himself. There wasn't much about it, just an ugly man staring at the camera. It didn't hold his attention for long though — he was much too preoccupied by everything else she had written.

She kept a photo of his ugliness and then wrote how he had hurt and forcefully copulated with her. Jhin was so filled with disgust that if it were possible he would violently kill the man in the pages. But he couldn't, of course. Even if he burned the diary, the truth would linger in the smoke. Rape was an ugly word. Very, very ugly. He did not like that at all.

Still, despite everything he had done, she wouldn't call him a monster, only "smart" and "unsatisfied." She continued this show of undeserved kindness, and for what? Trivial things that blinded her to the thing that was eating her insides.

A creak sounded from behind him. Jhin shut the journal and turned sharply to find the woman, who had been trying to approach him unnoticed and was now paused mid-step on the offending floorboard.

"Dya." He said her name pointlessly, her real name, the boring one, because a petname would sound oblivious and entitled, which were not the things he wanted to be if he could help it. He worried that any wrong thing might cause her to shatter.

He wouldn't say anything about what had happened if she didn't. He didn't want to acknowledge it, because trying to explain why he had begun to stab her would be a long and pointless effort. No one could ever understand the deep and untrodden well of self-hatred behind his motivations. Not even Jhin. Especially not Jhin.

"Did you read everything?" was all she said.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, grateful he wouldn't have to go through such a process. "Yes," he replied.

"Look, if something happens... I'll take care of it." She pulled at her hair unconsciously. "This is Noxus after all. You probably don't have to... worry about anything."

"What exactly was I supposed to worry about?"

She half smiled. "Gods, you are such a guy sometimes." He didn't know what that meant, and she didn't explain any further. He ran a hand through his hair, wishing that the thick, awkward thing standing between them would disappear, that he had never read her words, that he had never taken her with him, that he were somewhere else. He could not suffer the shame of hurting someone else with his inadequacy. He stood to match her level.

"I haven't... I don't often sleep well." What the hell was he saying? "You know I have a performance tonight, and it's very important to me that I'm well prepared for it." The moment he said it, Jhin had no idea what any of that was supposed to mean.

"No, it's my fault," she said. "I knew this wouldn't be easy." Her expression was pained. That was not forgiveness. He realized how foolish he was, how he had mistaken her for a wanton idiot desperate for his attention and guidance. While he was out pitying himself, she had already resolved this issue in her mind, had taken it in as her own private burden, and moved beyond it. She did not need his explanations. She was tolerating him. The thought was horrifying.

Almost on impulse, he reached out to touch her. He wanted to establish control. It was his elegance, his grace, after all, that had first lured her into this nightmare. These were talents he still posessed. He would allow her to take advantage of them now, to compensate for having exposed her to his weaknesses. Dya liked his self-restraint. She liked his gentle caresses. Yes, those were good things.

He tried not to notice the way she flinched when he put a hand on her cheek, rubbing gently with his thumb.

Dya hadn't expected to be kissed. The part of her that was a traitor felt a tingling in her womanhood that made her want to drag him onto the bed and force him to reschedule. The part of her with dignity broke it off after only a second.

Jhin almost said the words "thank you for not leaving me" as she moved away from him, but rather than embarrass himself so fatally he settled with the announcement that he was going to get ready and she should not wait up for him that evening since he would be back very late.

Like she even would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he's totally into self-asphyxiation btw 1v1 me if u disagree


	10. Catharsis

Dya had a boring face. Jhin knew it was what others considered beautiful, because other women had said it: "Such a pretty wife," they said — he let them think she was his wife (the poor thing) because it was easier that way — and she would smile at them graciously. But Jhin looked at her full lips and soft cheeks and round eyes and saw not beauty but raw, unused potential. He knew if he hurt her again she would leave him, but maybe, if she let him stab her enough times she would understand how he felt. How he didn't like it when her eyes only followed the bartender instead of meeting his. How he wanted to play the games of a loving couple.

This was not obsession. Why would he be obsessed with her? It was only a little fear that had taken root inside of him the moment he realized Dya had, and had always possessed, the ability to stop pretending. If she did, she would leave him, and then there would be no one else who so desired to control the Golden Demon that they could deny the man behind its mask was ugly. Everything would be out of place. That realization alone had awoken something deep inside him, something which had noticed she was on an outward trajectory and begun to quietly panic.

Jhin wanted to appease her, but he also didn't want to say he was sorry. "Sorry" was too simple, too much an approximation; instead, he would allow her to extract her own retribution. Dya could be as mad and as cruel as she liked, and start arguments, so long as she would stay.

The last argument they ever had began as an announcement between bites of bread at the tavern: "You're ambidextrous," she said. "I never noticed it before."

"Yes," he said, assuming an air of confidence although he was uncertain of where this was going.

"It ruins my whole plan." She smiled wickedly. "I was thinking I could pay one of the bored assholes at this bar to go ambush you after a performance, and I would ask them to break your right hand, so that you couldn't shoot with it until it healed, and for a while, we would be happy."

In truth it had not been so much a plan as a passing whim, but there was a pleasure to be had in this kind of meanness. Much to her delight, the color in his face changed just slightly.

"If you had sent a man to witness the Virtuoso in all his finery, dear, all you would've gotten out of it is a dead man," he said, doing his best to recover.

"I'm not sure if you've noticed this, but Ionians were the _last_ people to discover violence." She sipped at a glass of ale. Dya had, at some point, stopped trying to do things that would only make her look feminine. That image he was so in love with of her almost dying was not one worth preserving, not anymore. "It's given you this very cute impression of how reality works. You really have no idea how much everybody else in the world expects to kill and be killed."

"But they never expect to be killed _my way._ "

Dya ignored him, looking suddenly conflicted and staring into no where. He patiently ate some of his soup and waited for her to gather her thoughts.

"You know they sell poison here?" she said after a long pause. "Just... over the counter?" She reached into a pocket of the satchel she wore at her hip, and in the next moment she was flashing a wax capsule between her fingers for him to see. "Like this one?"

"Are you trying to liven up my performances, dearest?" he asked with mild amusement. "I appreciate the thought, but poison is by far the lowest form of death on the stage. No drama or artistry about it, one merely clutches his throat and succumbs to his demise."

"Oh, not to worry!" she said. "This one is water hemlock." Jhin didn't respond, prompting her to raise her eyebrows. "Violent convulsions?" she prompted. "You won't get bored."

"If you wanted to make an interesting death you could have just asked me. I wouldn't mind taking on a student." He moved his spoon around the bowl, carefully avoiding its edges. Four times clockwise, then four times counter-clockwise to make it even.

"You don't even seem concerned over how I'm planning to use this," she said incredulously.

Jhin continued at his idle task, still smiling to himself. "That's because I don't expect you to manage to kill me," he said.

"Kill you." Dya was impressed. To Jhin, it was like no one else in the world existed. Everything she did had to be about him. She supposed she was partly to blame for that. "No. It's _for me,_ idiot."

He looked up, still stirring.

She looked at him, numb, wide-eyed, serious, her voice now monotone. "If you try to hurt me again, I won't give you a chance."

He returned her serious gaze for a long beat. The spoon slowed to a stop.

"Okay?" she asked.

"Yes, very good, yes," he said with a slight smile, almost holding back laughter. Gods, this woman was insane. Jhin supposed she'd have to be to like him so much. An immortal demon threatening suicide because he had hurt her feelings was almost too much for him. He chuckled under his breath. "You do so tickle me, Dya."

A solemn nod. "I should have expected this would be funny to you." Dya closed her eyes and thought to yourself. The point of a threat wasn't that she was going to do it — though she would, if she had to — it was that she could, which should be enough to scare him. If Jhin didn't give a shit, then there was nothing to stop him from ruining everything. At that point she had two options: wait until that happened, or go inside her head and burn down the shrine she had built up for him there permanently.

Killing someone like this, in your mind, was a part of life, but this time would be difficult because she had never come so close to worshipping someone before. But she had done it, and she knew how to do it. He had never seen the shrine, never really looked at it, and he wouldn't miss it anyway. She said it to herself: you only ever loved the Jhin that got along with you, the Jhin you made up, the Jhin that does not exist. You only ever loved the box you stuffed him into. That one day he is a god and the next you cannibalize him and that's okay, because everybody is nobody and all it ever is is roles that must be filled, and they all do the same to you too, we can't help it. Going about our lives, hurting some and winning the adoration of others, we can't help but shift inpermanently between the highest and lowest castes of memory like a trick of the light, and it is so impossible to fix goodness or love to any specific person, only to specific people at specific moments in time.

"Okay," she said again, at last, but not to him. Jhin quirked an eyebrow. For him nothing had shifted; it had only been a few seconds. She brought the glass of ale to her lips, drank it all in one swig, and slammed it down. "Okay. Then it's done." Dya stood up from the table, and she walked out of the tavern.

Her satchel bounced at her hip, and she returned the capsule to it discretely as she walked. The light in Krexor, too, shifted, as the moment passed from afternoon to sunset, and she regarded her surroundings with a fondness forged by necessity. These buildings, these faceless people moving en masse had been her silent companions all the times Jhin had made her upset, and here they were again, faithful as always. Dya had no fixed destination, but intended to move at a brisk pace until the distance between her and the tavern was a comfortable one, and then she would worry about plans.

She heard his voice calling after. The particular clatter of his heavy boots. Dya had honestly not expected him to come after her and found herself stumbling in surprise. Damn his long legs! Even with her head start and through that crowd, she could hear him catching up to her. But she would not run, even as panic rose in her throat, because if she began to sprint he would do the same, and would still catch up to her, and worse, it would cause a public scene, forfeiting what little dignity still made her superior to him.

"Stop, stop, stop... stop, please," he said. He would sound impatient and not heartbroken. He had to. He had to stay in control.

"Go away, you're already dead to me," she called over her shoulder.

"I don't understand why you're angry!"

She raised her voice but didn't break her stride. "I don't believe that, Jhin. I think you're smart enough to figure it out and just don't want to admit you're an asshole." Then he was in front of her in an instant — she slammed into him on accident, but he kept one foot further back and handled her momentum without difficulty, holding her gently by the wrists and guiding her to a stop.

Eyes flashing with rage, she looked up at him with an almost audible snarl. Jhin's expression was more soft, situated uncertainly on the line between a stranger's concern and a lover's guilt.

She tried feigning right, then left, but his grip on her wrists became firm, and again he used his advantage of height and broadness to trap her. Her mind's eye flashed to that hated afternoon in the rainstorm, an electric current working its way suddenly through her insides. Not again. Never again.

"Pretend I am not smart enough," he said. "Indulge me."

She said nothing, looking blankly in front of her, wanting to be somewhere else.

"Dya."

The woman shook her head in disbelief. "Why are you doing this?" she whispered. "What is the point? None of this means anything to you."

"Why do you say that?"

"I made a mistake, I get it, I really do." Dya gestured a little bit, testing how much leverage he would grant her. Jhin enfolded her hands in his own. They were so warm. It broke her heart because she realized he was trying. He was. He just couldn't help but ruin anything he touched.

"What mistake?"

"This, all of this. Us." Her eyes were watering now. "Jhin, I know I've done nothing but bother you. I forced this onto you because... it was something I really wanted. I get that, and that's why you hate me, and I am so, so _sorry_." His expression remained tense, almost confused, but revealed nothing else. "But I get that now, and I'm trying to walk away! This is your chance to get rid of me like you've always wanted! So I don't... understand... why you won't let go of my hands."

"Because I don't want you to leave."

She laughed bitterly. "No. Not now. You don't get to change your mind now! You don't get to laugh at my suicide and then change your mind because you don't like that it made me walk out the door."

"I don't understand this suicide fixation!" Heads started to turn as they raised their voices. Neither of them paid any mind.

"I am so terrified you're going to hurt me again that I would rather kill myself," she hiccuped. "What do you not understand?!"

"The fact that you threaten suicide yet you cannot die!"

"Is that the only reason you haven't tried to kill me? Because you think I'm immortal?" The edges of her heart which had started to fray upon seeing his face and feeling his hands began once more to stitch themselves together. The rest of it stopped beating. Now she was cold, and certain.

"I— you—"

"The reason I lived that night is because Death itself believed I could mean something to you. The Lamb asked me if I would forgive you for murder, for everything you had done and were going to do to me, and I said yes, and she set me free." His hands fell, and she took the opportunity to push past him. "I guess we were both wrong," she said bitterly.

"Don't walk away from me!" he commanded in a voice that was twisted, furious, almost not his own. His usual eloquence was failing him. There was the want inside his chest, stronger than anything else, but not all the nicely worded reasons for it that he needed to control people. All Jhin could do as the moment passed him was ask time to stop moving. She would not leave him. He needed her. He didn't want to be alone again, in a room, with the now irrefutable knowledge that he was above all else, a monster. He needed her to protect him from that. Jhin reached out, without thinking, to grab her arm and pull her back. He needed her.

And she turned and slapped him.

He touched the place where it had connected. The breath shared between them shuddered as it moved back and forth.

"Please," he whispered. "I don't know how to ask for this."

Dya closed her eyes. "I know. And it is so terrifying how easily loyalty falters," she said quietly. When she opened them, they were still shining. "But here it is, isn't it? In the end, no matter the platitudes, the love songs, the poetry, all anyone can actually ever do is look out for themselves.

"Religion is a luxury," she said, " _love_ is a luxury that comes only once we have guaranteed our survival or forsaken it." A tear rolled down her face. "I'm not ready to die yet Jhin. I hope you will be. I hope that one day when you get pushed to that edge, you can kill the animal inside you that wants to exist first above all else, that you don't have to live long enough to ever betray that thing you love so much. That you never have to find out that, in the end, beauty is so... meaningless."

He watched her walk away until she eventually turned at the corner far down the road and disappeared out of sight. He didn't move his fingers from the red spot on his cheek all the while, and nor did she ever turn to cast one last glance at him.

By the time he moved his hand from his face the mark had faded, and then she was completely gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dya? More like Bye-a.


	11. Interlude

She had left some of her things. Among them was the journal that had called him names and conveyed such terrible secrets. Jhin kept in correspondence with his clients, using the same cipher that they always did, wherein the names of the dead were replaced with comments on spices and rare inks, and when his job in Noxus ended, he traveled to Piltover for the next, all the while keeping a contentious relationship with the hated thing. On the one hand it was his last reminder of her, the proof that she had indeed seen him in all his forms and decided he was nonetheless beautiful, at one time even deserving of her love. On the other it was evidence that he didn't deserve it.

Without Dya around, the other person in the room was once again his thoughts, which were not nearly as generous with their praise. Instead they wondered how he could devote himself to the Art as though, at the end of all things, if it were to behold him, it would find him worthless and ugly despite all he had done, because of something he could not control: the fact he was born human and not divine. How he hated that reality.

Yet the Art itself was blameless, as it was not the judge. The judge was Truth, which he hated but could not deny. He wore a mask to hide from it, bone-white with hollow eyes, a decorated skeleton who could, by his orchestration of it, enjoy for a moment the sense of finality and significance of things conveyed only by death. But the truth was that eventually the performance ended, and after them his breathing was not labored, his heartbeat was steady, and when the mask was not on he moved and acted in the perfunctory, machine-like manner that was required of him by the unspoken rules of everyday life.

Life conferred the ability not to cling to things as an identity because there would always be a second chance, and as a result people were duplicitous and equivocal, and the reality of that — the inherent banality of being a living person — _that_ was what haunted him. The near-dead could not afford to lie. In order to exist, Jhin would have to. That was the Truth.

Jhin didn't want the judge to be Truth. He wanted the judge to be Dya.

In the first set of blank pages in that diary, he wrote her a letter she would never find, in old Ionian script she could never read:

> A white bird came to my window. I frightened it away. Before I frightened it away I tried to kill it many times. I broke its wings, I cut its stomach, but I would not touch its throat because it kept singing to me. I have never had one sing to me before.
> 
> Humankind is not innately good. However, whatever inside me that kept my hands from touching the white bird's throat was not something I learned. Some part of my chemical signature responded to the sounds its little throat made. The bird was familiar with it.
> 
> It is this same part of my signature that allows me to recognize there is something wrong with me. It is that I am deaf to whatever language it is that gives value to the bird's life or the rest of its body. Only music could ever stop me, and even then only barely. In the end, the bird still flew away.
> 
> The language of value is also the language of suffering and enough. I am still deaf to it. I know no system of bargaining; forgiveness is in the language, and justice is always something I have imitated but not felt. I know I am supposed to ask for forgiveness. Instead I want to know the bird so intimately I memorize every part of its body, inside and out.
> 
> The world of goodness turns and I am outside of it. I have only known it because a bird flew up to the edges of it and sang to me. If you asked me the describe the nature of good and evil, I would implore you to ask the bird, for the bird knows better than I.

And then years passed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This shit's gotta come to an end soon


End file.
